Thursday's filing of IPO paperwork means Twitter moves closer in its long-anticipated goal to become a public entity. When the social media wizard does, nearly everyone associated with the company could become rich, according to a report by Businessweek.
No one will benefit more than former CEO Evan Williams, who owns a 12 percent stake and needs Twitter to sell at $17.60 per share in order to call himself a billionaire at the age of 41, reported Businessweek. Other prominent shareholders standing to make a large fortune are Pete Fenton, who, along with his firm, Benchmark Capital, owns a 6.7 percent stake, and Jack Dorsay, who helped invent the social media phenomenon and owns 4.9 percent of the company.
Businessweek also reported that all 2,000 of Twitter staff members could make a small fortune once their employer goes public, but they won't be able to sell their shares until Feburary.
Twitter stock, which will be found in newspapers and online under the abbreviation TWTR, won't be available until November, according to Wired. Companies must wait three weeks upon filing an IPO before the public can purchase their stocks, Wired reported.
Twitter's impending transformation ranks among the most anticipated transitions into the public realm since Facebook and Linked In, according to Wired.
"It's completely conquered mobile. It has an enormous social network," Max Wolff of Greencrest Capital told Reuters. "It's becoming a key utility as a second screen to TV and it's literally the first draft of history.
"Normally a company like Twitter would have been public for some time," he said.
Facebook's rocky start to the public stratosphere might have given Twitter pause for concern, Reuters reported. Then again, Facebook could also be Twitter's impetus, as its stock has been climbing all summer and currently costs higher than its original $38 gate price, according to Reuters.
But Twitter won't come close to Facebook's $16 billion IPO when it went public May 2012. The social media company, according to Wired, was "slow to monetize its popularity" since launching in 2006 and thus will be forced to settle for a one billion dollar start.
The event could also hold important implications for other tech companies debating whether to join the public sphere, according to Wired. Examples of such companies include Palantir, Square, Hubspot and Gilt.
