Excerpt from this very insightful blog post:

So by now, you’ve heard endlessly about the Facebook/Goldman quasi-IPO. What is its larger significance?

Consider, for a moment, a historical contrast. When Google IPO’d, it explicitly refused to play by Wall St’s rules—instead, issuing equity in a relatively open Dutch auction:

“…Among other things, Google issued a firm warning to speculators hoping to make a buck by quickly flipping their shares, a hallmark of many hot technology IPOs in the past. Instead, Google hopes to place its shares in a way that avoids the typical investment banking strategy of intentional underpricing—and the volatility that frequently follows.

“Our goal is to have an efficient market price—a rational price set by informed buyers and sellers—for our shares at the IPO and afterward,” the filing states. “Our goal is to achieve a relatively stable price in the days following the IPO and that buyers and sellers receive a fair price at the IPO.”
To make that sharper:
“…According to its filing, Google seems willing, eager even, to start off life as a publicly traded company on the right foot, hoping to steer clear of some of the sweetheart dealmaking that characterized the last wave of go-go IPOs. Instead, Google plans an auction of its shares to raise up to $2.7 billion; a process open to all bidders.”
Today, we have Facebook—not challenging Wall St’s rules, but, instead, endorsing and subscribing to them. Facebook’s quasi-IPO is a deal with Goldman to build an SPV through which high-net-worth investors can essentially buy blocks of Facebook equity…

read the whole thing on Bubblegeneration