If all the noise and fanfare of Friday was anything to go by, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Facebook's IPO was nothing but a roaring success. Turns out that, behind the scenes, NASDAQ was a crumbling wreck.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Robert Greifeld, chief executive of NASDAQ, has come out as saying: "This was not our finest hour."
So what went wrong? First, an embarrassing 30 minute delay. Then apparently, despite rigorous testing, their systems couldn't cope, which led to order cancellations that slowed up the whole initial public offering process. Those glitches saw bankers and hedge fund managers waiting over two hours to know if their transactions had been successful.
Greifeld went on to explain that NASDAQ is "humbly embarrassed" by the technical problems. Meanwhile, Zuckerberg couldn't really care less: he's rich and married. [Wall Street Journal]
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