Facebook IPO: Zuckerberg Asked Warren Buffett for Advice

By Barbara E. Hernandez

| Monday, May 7, 2012 | Updated 1:07 PM PDT

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FILE - In this July 6, 2011 file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg smiles during an announcement at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. A Facebook security flaw, revealed this week, allowed users to gain access to the billionaire businessman's private pictures. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)

It seems that Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been asking for a lot of advice from knowledgeable sources -- including Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett.

The billionaire octogenarian reportedly spoke of the 2011 meeting in Sun Valley, Idaho with Becky Quick of CNBC, which she tweeted enthusiastically. Publicly, Buffett has said he and his company have no interest in purchasing Facebook shares.

Any time you get a truly extraordinary business— and it's obviously— you know, it's an extraordinary business— but they're the hardest ones to value because the question is, is whether five or 10 years from now that they will be as extraordinary as they are now, or they may keep doing more and more wonderful things. So I— it's just harder to figure out than, oh, we'll say Coca-Cola. . . . I mean, Coca-Cola 10 years from now is going to be bigger and more profitable, in my view, than it is now, but there won't be some quantum change in either direction. So it's much easier for me to figure out what Coca-Cola's worth than Google or Facebook.

Buffett said that the meeting was arranged by a shareholder and Zuckerberg asked him questions about going public with a company. Buffett said he offered some advice but didn't go into details. (However the notoriously frugal Buffett did go into detail about how he scammed expensive ties off of Jay-Z and President Obama.)

It's not surprising that Zuckerberg sought out advice from anyone with some business acumen about Facebook's IPO which starts its roadshow today. So why wouldn't he ask the advice of one of the richest, yet down-to-earth, men in the country? Perhaps Buffett even managed to get a Facebook hoodie out of it.