It’s official. Facebook has filed for what investors, tech-analysts and everyone with an understand of just how big the company is, are calling the largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) out of Silicon Valley. Not only that, but many are expecting it to be one of the largest in US history as well and comparable to current IPO leaders Visa and GM.

For those that aren’t too sure what an IPO is or what it actually means that Facebook is seeking one, it’s simply the process of getting the company listed on the stock exchange, and thus, permitting virtually anyone to invest in the company. In theory, once a company goes public anyone should be allowed to invest in it regardless of their income. Nowadays, companies like Facebook are preventing the general public from investing and allowing massive investment firms like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan from getting first dips on bidding. But, that’s another problem that we’ll leave some finance sites to highlight and discuss.

Facebook Expected To Be Worth Between $75-100 Billion

Facebook, which has been around for over eight years now, has set a goal of reaching $5 billion in initial investments. The company is said to be worth between $75-100 billion and you’re now probably wondering how there could be a $25 billion gap in potential value. Well that’s due to the fact that a lot of hype could mean a lot more people investing in the company, which we’ve also seen in the past with other tech-company IPO’s like Groupon’s bounce from $18 to $28 per share. A final price won’t be set for another few months, but most are predicting a May IPO based on their document filings today.

Facebook was forced to cough over some figures, now that it’s planning on going public, and it shows a report of $3.7 billion in revenue last year – up a whopping 88% from just a year earlier. From that, they earned a profit of $1 billion and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg will maintain total control of Facebook even after the IPO due to the “special shares” he owns that give him 10 times the voting power of regular shares.

In a personal letter he wrote with the filing of the IPO, CEO Mark Zuckerberg went on to explain Facebook’s philosophy which he described as being the “hacker way”. With that, he elaborated that the person with the best ideas and implementations of them should be the rewarded ones rather than those who are best at lobbying for an idea. In an interesting statement he also stated that investors should view the social network different in that, “Simply put: We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services. These days I think more and more people want to use services from companies that believe in something beyond simply maximizing profits.” Most people are applauding his outright warning to Wall Street investors purely looking to ensure that they get the most possible profits from their Facebook investment.

So while we wait until around May to see how much Facebook will actually be worth, know that we’re definitely not the only ones anxiously waiting to see the result of all this. Facebook’s IPO is expected to create over 1,000 new millionaires among their 3,200 employees; try sleeping knowing you’re going to be a millionaire in a couple months!