
Marc Andreessen Sold 73 Percent of His Facebook Stock in the Last Two Weeks - techaddict009
https://recode.net/2015/11/14/marc-andreessen-sold-73-percent-of-his-facebook-stock-in-the-last-two-weeks/
======
wslh
Previous:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10548690](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10548690)

------
dctoedt
Andreesen is a board member, so under Facebook's insider-trading policy he is
required to conduct sales under a Rule 10b5-1 plan [1]. From FB's most recent
annual proxy statement [2]: "Certain of our directors and executive officers
have adopted written plans, known as Rule 10b5-1 plans, in which they will
contract with a broker to buy or sell shares of our common stock on a periodic
basis. _Under a Rule 10b5-1 plan, a broker executes trades pursuant to
parameters established by the director or executive officer when entering into
the plan, without further direction from them._ The director or executive
officer may amend or terminate the plan in specified circumstances. _Our
executive officers and directors are required to conduct all purchase or sale
transactions under a Rule 10b5-1 plan_." (Emphasis added.)

"A company making such disclosure _[that an insider has adopted a 10b5-1
plan]_ generally will disclose the existence of a plan but not the specific
details." [3]

[1] Form 4 reporting Andreesen's sale:
[http://investor.fb.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1127602-15-304...](http://investor.fb.com/secfiling.cfm?filingID=1127602-15-30479&CIK=1326801)

[2]
[http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/00013268011...](http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680115000019/facebook2015proxystatement.htm)

[3]
[http://media.mofo.com/files/Uploads/Images/FAQ10b51.pdf](http://media.mofo.com/files/Uploads/Images/FAQ10b51.pdf)
("MoFo" is Morrison & Foerster, a leading Bay-Area BigLaw firm.)

~~~
bendykstra
> The director or executive officer may amend or terminate the plan in
> specified circumstances.

Under this system, would it be possible to contract with two brokers, telling
one to sell shares and the other to buy the same amount? If so, should you
learn useful information later, you could terminate one plan, putting the
information to use immediately.

~~~
csmajorfive
You can't terminate or amend (or even start) a plan without a cooling off
period. So any information you'd like to act on will likely be priced in by
the time you can take any legal action. Also, you can't have two plans. A
modification requires a suspension of all trading.

------
csmajorfive
Anyone speculating on this should look into the mechanics of 10b51 plans. He
made no active decision to sell or not sell.

The sale may have been triggered by a price floor ($100?) that he must've
established a very long time ago.

------
mark_l_watson
He is probably getting money together for that motor home he has been wanting
to buy.

Seriously, he probably wants liquid cash to do what I guess he most enjoys:
investing in new companies.

Sorry if this is really off topic, but I think that it is most interesting to
understand what people really enjoy in life. I like to ask people what their
hobbies are before asking them what they do for a living.

Marc Andreesen strikes me as the kind of guy who likes to be in the game,
startup wise.

~~~
techaddict009
Any details about his motor home?

~~~
hyperbovine
Whoosh.

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here.

------
xpose2000
The impressive thing is that he waited until FB was over $100 to sell.
Facebook was faced with a huge uphill battle with Wall Street. Each time they
had solid earnings, the stock would go down on fears of young people not using
the service or their inability to monetize mobile properly or that they
overpaid for Instagram.

Wall Street finally caught on that it is a social network in a league of their
own and a company that makes solid decisions, but it took a long time and Marc
could have easily sold along the way.

Andreessen stuck through all of that to make it to $100+. It seems like he
felt like it was time to cash in. Rightfully so. FB will be just fine moving
forward.

~~~
jonknee
> The impressive thing is that he waited until FB was over $100 to sell.

That would be impressive for a dev who had 99% of her net worth in Facebook
stock, but for someone who is already cash wealthy and a paper billionaire,
it's much less impressive.

~~~
javajosh
a) How do you know he's cash wealthy? ( _How could anyone know this_ , except
Marc himself?), and b) Why is patiently holding something, then selling it
when you said you would "not impressive", and why does his wealth have to do
with the quality of a decision?

~~~
austenallred
> How do you know he's cash wealthy?

That may be a bit of an assumption, but starting two billion dollar companies
then buying Skype (a lot of which was done with personal money), selling it
for $5 billion more... He would have to try _really_ hard to be cash poor.

~~~
x0x0
Not to mention marrying a philanthropist whose parents are billionaires.

------
hackaflocka
Por moi, his Tweetstorms, and his Twitter feed, might be the most
educationally beneficial thing I've experienced in my adult life (in addition
to Nassim Taleb's Twitter). If you're reading this pmarca: thank you.

Hope he invests in Twitter to keep it alive.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Thanks for the advice. I just started following Marc Andreesen and Nassim
Taleb also.

~~~
daodedickinson
I checked them out but Marc Andreessen keeps retweeting to the effect that
fake Syrian passports mean the attacks are intended to close Europe's borders.
What? Buying fake Syrian passports is what many of the migrants have done to
get priority benefits. It's very normal among migrants, ISIS-loving or not.
It'd be like saying a Sinaloa Cartel murderer using someone else SSN is trying
to shut down the US-Mexico border. ISIS has been very vocal about sending
thousands of soldiers abroad to kill. They have said, too, that they hope to
provoke an anti-Muslim backlash that improves their recruiting. But ISIS is a
nation state and a religion—it needs to be able to claim victory no matter how
Europe reacts, just as a politician can never cleanly apologize or admit
fault.

~~~
phaemon
He could be right. The part I don't get is, not why did the person have a
Syrian passport (as you say, fakes are common), but why were they carrying it
with them on a suicide mission?

~~~
wpietri
I have no knowledge here, but it seems like even if you're going on a suicide
mission, you might want a plan B. If there's some reason they decide to
postpone, he might need the passport.

------
danmaz74
> It’s a ton of money, and it’s not very common for executives to sell at the
> pace and quantity that Andreessen has been selling these past two week.

Is a member of the board of directors an "executive"? I didn't think that was
the case.

------
csense
I don't think this is all that surprising. Basically you want your wealth in a
balanced portfolio of different companies, so that a downturn in a single
company's fortune doesn't affect you.

Thus, a big win should be cashed out, otherwise it ends up being too a large a
piece of your portfolio.

------
marvel_boy
This certainly catches the eye. Any reason to sell now?

~~~
purpled_haze
He's not the only one who has been cashing out over the last months. In my
opinion, it looks like we are in for a correction if you look at the long-term
historic logarithmic graph of the S&P 500's value.

[http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^GSPC+Interactive#{%22use...](http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^GSPC+Interactive#{%22useLogScale%22:true,%22range%22:%22max%22,%22allowChartStacking%22:true})

As Warren Buffet says, "Buy low. Sell high." Macrotrends affect stocks as a
whole, which affect public companies, which affect advertising budgets, which
influences Facebook's income.

I've been bitten before by assuming a bear market, pulling out, and then
seeing things recover, so I'm much more careful now and have not completely
pulled out. Large investors that really don't need those extra boatloads of
gold they might get if they miss an upswing have been pulling out, though, to
avoid risk.

~~~
allannienhuis
"He's not the only one who has been cashing out over the last months."

For every seller, there's a buyer. The buyers of his stock aren't the only
ones investing in FB stock over the last months.

------
mondras
This might have something to do with the Fed raising interest rates, all
stocks will take a hit.

------
Eleutheria
Peak Facebook they call it. We already passed that mark long ago.

~~~
tedunangst
Nah, all those shorts at $25 are going to payoff big someday...

------
icedchai
I bought at 33 and am still holding.

