The World's Richest Man

By the time Ethan reached Nasdaq, reporters had filled the space outside the exchange. Companies went public in New York all the time. Facebook had spent the previous year making bankers ask why it had not done so already, and that made this morning different.

After Myspace's collapse, investors had sought Ethan out with increasing urgency. He had declined their private offers. Now the network was opening a much larger portion of its ownership to the market, and everyone wanted a first look at the price.

Ethan stepped from the car with Fitz. Camera flashes went off before they reached the doors.

"How high can Facebook go?" one reporter called.

"What happens next in South America?" asked another.

Fitz glanced at his watch. "We'll answer questions after the ceremony. Please let us through."

Inside, Ethan and Fitz took their places at the front. There were fewer founders and early investors on the platform than at most listings. Facebook had not spent its early years selling successive rounds to outside funds. The concentrated ownership had made the company harder to buy into and easier for Ethan to steer.

He spoke briefly, then pressed the button to begin the opening sequence. A countdown appeared across Nasdaq's screens. People in the room joined in for the final seconds.

"Three. Two. One."

Facebook's logo lit up above the floor. Beneath it ran the line the company had chosen for the day: Facebook brings us together. Orders began to flow. The price moved almost at once.

The employee purchase pool Ethan had announced the week before had not been fully taken. Most staff were comfortable rather than independently wealthy. Fitz had tried to raise close to fifty million dollars and fallen short; he had already stretched his credit to do it. Across the company, employees had bought roughly 1.3 percent of Facebook's shares through the program. The unclaimed portion of the planned pool went back into the offering under its documented terms.

Taken with the broader float, close to sixty percent of Facebook was being placed in public hands. At an opening price of $56.60 a share, that represented nearly seventy billion dollars of stock. The figures were large enough to make the room feel unreal, but every trade still had a buyer and a seller. A quoted value was not a pile of cash in Ethan's pocket.

A reporter from the Financial Times caught him at the edge of the ceremony. "What will the listing make you personally?"

"Ask me when the market closes," Ethan said. "Even then you'll have to read the filings."

He invited the press outside, where more people could hear him. Fitz asked the crowd for quiet. Several thousand spectators were gathered nearby, with many more following the screens.

"Facebook reached this day because people chose to use it," Ethan said. "Going public isn't the finish line. We intend to keep expanding, and we intend to make the service worth the time you give it. Thank you for bringing us this far."

The applause rose. Ethan waited for it to ease.

"That's one announcement. Here's the other: I intend to make an offer to Time Warner for Warner Bros."

For a beat, the reporters seemed unable to decide which question to ask first. Then everyone spoke at once. MGM had just fought off an alliance of competitors. Ethan was now proposing to buy one of the studios that had helped lead it.

Warner Bros. was no minor label he could bolt onto a distribution slate. A deal would require a premium, financing, board approvals, and regulatory review. Depending on the assets included and the price Time Warner demanded, speculation ran from the mid-thirties into the forty-billion-dollar range. Ethan offered no figure. His public intention was an opening move, not a signed agreement.

Security brought him back to the car while the questions were still coming. The announcement followed him into financial news, technology coverage, and every entertainment feed that could carry it.

By the close, Facebook's market value stood at about $153.3 billion, far above the $114.5 billion valuation discussed before the listing. The jump turned a remarkable flotation into a story about the scale of Ethan's fortune. Some outlets compared the company with established technology giants; others tried to rank it beside private energy businesses using figures that were not directly comparable.

The personal estimates were even less settled. Reporters tried to turn Facebook's rising value into a single number for Ethan's fortune, but the public had not yet reconciled direct shares, holdings through other companies, stock sold into the offering, and restrictions on what he could sell next. Still, after adding his known interests in MGM, Hasbro, and other businesses, headlines were already calling him the world's richest man. Ethan let the filings, rather than a microphone, answer the final arithmetic.

Back in Beverly Hills, his family and friends had arranged a party. Gal talked with guests near the pool while colleagues from MGM and Facebook traded versions of the day's events. Ethan stood for a moment apart from them, watching the room he had once barely dared to imagine.

"Even Tony Stark might envy this," he said, arms open to the night.

At Warner Bros., no one was in a mood to celebrate. Barry Meyer had heard the offer announced in public. For a moment his wife thought he might need a hospital; as soon as he could move, he went to the office instead.

Warner and Disney had held back major releases while they planned another attempt to challenge MGM. Barry had expected a fight over films and opening weekends. Ethan had chosen the company's ownership instead.

"Charles," Barry said to an executive across the table, "you always have an idea. Give me one."

"The decision isn't ours alone," Charles replied. "It belongs to Time Warner's board. An offer around thirty billion might be easy to dismiss. Raise it to thirty-five and people will listen. Go to forty and they'll want to see the paperwork tonight."

"You're telling me what they might accept. I need a way to stop it."

Barry knew that a new owner could replace the leadership as soon as the papers were signed. Most of the executives around him had opposed Ethan during the alliance's campaign. They had reason to fear the first day of an MGM-controlled Warner.

One colleague removed his glasses. "Time Warner has debts to manage. The people at headquarters are probably working out what price they need, not how to save our jobs."

Another executive arrived with news that Richard Parsons had been called back from Europe for an emergency meeting. The board was considering its options.

"Then antitrust is our best chance," someone said. "MGM and Warner together would be too much power in film and television."

Barry was not convinced that argument alone would hold. A few years earlier, Sony had considered a bid for MGM. A regulator would want a defined market and evidence, not simply a rival studio's fear.

"Look at comics," Charles said suddenly. "Ethan also controls Marvel. Warner owns DC. Put those businesses together and you're talking about most of the American comic-book market."

The estimates on their desk gave Marvel and DC roughly thirty-five percent each. Whether those figures would survive a formal review was another matter, but a combined share near seventy percent gave counsel a concrete question to raise.

Barry struck the table with his palm. "Then that's where we start. We don't get to decide whether Time Warner sells. We can make sure the people reviewing the deal understand what else comes with Warner."