It's not just Digital Sky Technologies that is in "no rush" for Facebook to go public -- Facebook's founder says he's happy to take his time, too. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to the Wall Street Journal is putting his head together with those of Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel (INTC) and Charles Phillips, president of Oracle (ORCL) to gain insights on running his company, over which he'll have more control as a result of Facebook's dual-class share structure. If Zuckerberg gets his way, he'll run Facebook for a while before taking the dive into public capital markets.

Zuckerberg tells the Wall Street Journal(subscription required), "We're going to go public eventually, because that's the contract that we have with or investors and our employees." Doubtless, these two parties are eager to experience a liquidity event, particularly those from the company's earliest days and preliminary financing rounds.

Facebook is implementing a new stock structure to make sure the founders retain control, immediately causing rumors about an impending initial public offering. Why would Facebook need Class A and Class B shares otherwise? Under the new structure, which is similar to Google's (GOOG), Mark Zuckerberg and other early entrants wouldn't have to worry about yielding the floor to outsiders when if the company goes public.

The stock structure was adopted to ensure that existing shareholders keep control on voting issues, according to Facebook statement. No details were given as to who the winners are in this arrangement, but a Wall Street Journal report says that, according to its sources, all current shareholders would be converted to Class B shares, which carry 10 times the voting rights of Class A shares.

Those with aspirations of unfettered wealth look for clues everywhere. From top schools to unique talents, they build profiles of what it takes to become absurdly wealthy ... as though the process can be blueprinted. Well, if you're looking for answers, the Forbes 400 list is a great place to start. If anyone has mastered the art of making money, it's this collection of billionaires. They have the answers, and you are ready to learn.

A look at the lives of the Forbes 400 implies that the most important attribute is the ability to sift through ambiguity. Contradictions abound, meaning that shades of gray hold the answer to your burning desire for riches. Should you go to a great school? Well, yes ... but only if you're going for an MBA and plan to work for a major financial firm. But, you can still go to an Ivy League school if you're not studying finance but join Skull and Bones. Of course, dropping out of Harvard can be a great way to launch a career in the technology field.

It's tricky. There are no easy answers. But, the road to billions is littered with the corpses of aspiring magnates who thought it wouldn't be difficult. So, don't just read the seven attributes after the jump. Understand them. Read them twice. Then, your future financial situation will be assured.

Or, you can just do one of those chain e-mails and wish for wealth.

[Thanks, Forbes and MSNBC]

Marc Andreessen was only in his early 20s when he changed the world forever. Of course, he helped to create the Mosaic browser and was the cofounder of Netscape Communications (he even was on the front cover of Time).

No doubt, he learned some important lessons – especially during the dot-com bust. In fact, he has been able to deal with the adversity, having created such great companies as Opsware – which was sold to Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) recently for $1.6 billion.

Well, now Andreessen is going to help another tech wunderkind: Mark Zuckerberg, who is the mastermind of Facebook. That is, Andreessen will join the company's board.

While such maneuverings are often cosmetic, I think this move is more substantive. Talking to a variety of Silicon Valley VCs, there's much skepticism about Zuckerberg's capabilities. Besides, is social networking really going to be a platform that can be monetized effectively – and justify the rich valuations?

No doubt, Andreessen understands the pressures and the importance of making key strategic decisions. So all in all, this looks like a pretty savvy move for Facebook.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.

Gawker reports that Ben Mezrich, a Harvard graduate and author of a 'non-fiction' account of MIT students making it big in Las Vegas, has received a million dollar contract to write a book about Facebook. Mezrich's book proposal claims that his source co-founder, Eduardo Saverin, anticipated a Fall 2008 IPO for Facebook. But Facebook denies the claim. To go public this fall, Facebook would have had to register by now.

Here are some other story elements from Gawker:

• Founder Mark Zuckerberg and Severin started Facebook to help get into an exclusive Harvard Final club
• They also thought Facebook would boost their social life
• In high school, Zuckerberg got on an FBI list for accidentally hacking into a government site
• Zuckerberg and Severin "ate koala on the yacht of the CEO of Sun Microsystems" (NASDAQ: JAVA)

Meanwhile Zuckerberg has sued Saverin, claiming "Saverin tried to hijack the company by freezing its bank account when Facebook desperately needed cash in its formative months." And Saverin countersued for a return on his initial investment.

Even as its founder Mark Zuckerberg has ascended to #785 on the Forbes List, the company has been dooged by questions -- and a lawsuit -- about its origins.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who are twins and founders of the site ConnectU, accused the Facebook founder of stealing their idea, and sued him for fraud, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. Facebook denied the allegations, but the litigation cast somewhat of a shadow of the company.

Now the New York Times is reporting that "a person briefed on the status of dueling lawsuits between Facebook and the competing site ConnectU said on Sunday that Facebook was finalizing a settlement with the founders of ConnectU ... A Facebook spokeswoman said the company would not comment on legal matters. But the person briefed on the status of the negotiations said motions to dismiss the cases are expected to be filed "within weeks."

Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) recently lost its director of social media to Facebook, and the company's IPO is one of the most anticipated events in Web 2.0, although the company has not yet made any moves to take itself public. The resolution of this lawsuit, a source of some uncertainty, is an important step in moving toward a public offering.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on 60 Minutes on Sunday with a message that may be disappointing for investors looking for a piece of the red hot social networking site: An IPO this year is "highly unlikely".

Zuckerberg, who is worth a reported $3 billion, says he lives in a one-bedroom apartment with a mattress on the floor, and is CEO of a company with 400 employees.

Last year, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) bought 1.6% of the company for $240 million, but doesn't seem ready to take the next step anytime soon:

"I think what I can announce is that it is highly unlikely that we will go public in 2008. And when going public makes sense to do, we'll do that. And maybe that's two years out. Maybe it's three years out."

In spite of Facebook's huge popularity, there is concern that Zuckerberg and company have not yet found a way to monetize it successfully and turn it into a wildly profitable venture. It may be that Facebook plans to wait to go public until it finds a way to do that and score a higher valuation.

But long-term, I see the company's decision not to rush into an IPO as bullish. If Zuckerberg wants to cash out, he could do it right now and and get a nice bed for his mattress. His decision to keep the company private demonstrates a long-term commitment and optimism that the company will be as highly regarded 2 or 3 years down the road as it is now.

DealBook reports that Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is shoving more chips to the middle of the table in its battle for a stake in Facebook.

Facebook's investors, which include Accel Partners and Greylock Partners, want a deal that values Facebook between $10 billion and $15 billion. That would mean that Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) or Google would have to fork over $1.5 billion for a 5% to 10% stake.

Who will win this Facebook face-off? Google wants to raise the price so high that Microsoft will walk away. But Microsoft is said to be willing to pay any price to keep Facebook away from Google. We'll know who wins in 24 to 48 hours.

But we won't need to wait that long to find the real winner -- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his investors are guaranteed to make big bank on this deal regardless of who wins the Google-Microsoft face-off.

Update: The New York Times reports that Microsoft won the Facebook face-off -- paying $240 million for a 1.6% stake -- valuing Facebook at $15 billion. That's 100 times its expected $150 million in 2007 revenue -- valuing $1 of Facebook's sales at 7.1 times more than a dollar of Google's -- whose Price/Sales (P/S) ratio is 14.1 -- and 17.5 times that of Microsoft's which sports a P/S ratio of 5.7. It looks like the old school Harvard ties paid off (that's where Gates, Ballmer, and Zuckerberg attended college).

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter. He has no financial interest in Google or Microsoft.

For those of you who didn't follow the internet bubble, let me just clarify something: The suggestion that a company could be "the next GeoCities" is not a compliment. It's sort of like being "the next Ryan Leaf" or better, "the next Pets.com."

But The Wall Street Journal's Dennis Berman (subscription required) makes that suggestion. GeoCities got off to a hot-start but withered after Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) paid $4.7 billion for the unprofitable site. Yahoo! focused on building traffic and neglected innovation and today, Geocities is mainly a memory.

While there have been reports that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is in talks over spending up to $500 million for a 5% stake in the company (giving Facebook a total value of $10 billion), you have to think that the site's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is wary of selling out to a larger company.

No doubt, Facebook is one of the internet's hottest startups. The company has raised gobs of venture capital, has deals with companies like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), and is often rumored to go public or be bought out.

The company's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is just in his early twenties, fresh from Harvard. Over the past few months, several of his recent classmates have made claims that they are the real owners of the Facebook concept.

Such disputes are very common for early stage companies. And it's also common for these companies to be sloppy in protecting themselves from legal claims.

So what can be done?

When eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) bought Skype last year, the company's CEO, Meg Whitman, argued that the $2.6 billion purchase made sense because of synergies. Most importantly, the estimation that eBay activity would increase as buyers and sellers could communicate via Skype.

But according to Breakingviews, Skype has "failed to live up to" this estimation. As a result, the synergies between Sykpe and eBay remain largely unnoticed or nonexistent.

Breakingviews makes an interesting point -- Skype would be an unbelievably useful tool for social networking websites. Both MySpace and Facebook are going to have huge money behind them in the next few years. MySpace, with the support of News Corp (NYSE: NWS), has potential as a buyer. However, Facebook is the better bet. With the company allegedly preparing for an IPO, Facebook's renegade founder Mark Zuckerburg will soon have the capital to acquire Skype if he so desires.

eBay and Skype don't really have any legitimate synergies. Auction activity hasn't been increasing due to the "Skype safety" that Whitman advocated at the time of purchase. But Skype remains a very valuable company, especially to a service that could actually integrate Skype effectively such as Facebook or MySpace.