5 Famous Tech IPO's Before Facebook
Microsoft: 1986
Microsoft, founded on April 4, 1975 went public 11 years later on March 1986. It offered its shares with an opening price of $21. The demand for shares forced company to offer around 3 million shares instead of the initial 2.5 million. The founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen held 45 and 25 percent of shares respectively at that time. The company currently has a market value of $247.78 billion and trades under the symbol MSFT.
Yahoo!: 1996
Yahoo which was founded on March 1, 1995 is one of the companies which went for IPO within a short time. It announced an offering of 2.6 million shares at $13 per share on April 1996. The price closed at $33 on the first day, which gave the company a market value of $848 million. Yahoo currently has a value of $19.19 billion and trades under the symbol YHOO.