With Facebook‘s shares finally trading above their initial public offering price of $38 a share, Sheryl Sandberg is taking some money off the table.
Ms. Sandberg, the No. 2 executive at the social networking company, sold 2.37 million shares of stock on Wednesday at an average price of more than $38, according to a securities filing released late Friday, after the stock market closed.
Her proceeds amounted to about $91 million, according to the filing.
Like many technology company executives, Ms. Sandberg routinely sells small chunks of her holdings under automated trading plans. The latest sale also was part of an automated plan, according to the filing.
But it was by far the largest sale she had made since the company went public in April 2012, amounting to nearly 6 percent of the stock, restricted stock units and options she held at the time of the company’s I.P.O. in April 2012.
It was also the biggest stock sale reported by any Facebook executive since the company exceeded its I.P.O. price last month.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive officer, has disposed of no shares other than to make charitable contributions.
Ms. Sandberg, who recently wrote the best-selling advice book “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,†has been the subject of frequent speculation that she will leave Facebook, perhaps for a job in government.
However, she has frequently said that she has no plans to quit the company. She still holds more than $1 billion of Facebook stock when options and restricted stock units are included.
A Facebook spokesman said the company never comments on share sales by its executives. The company also declined to make Ms. Sandberg available to discuss the matter.
With Facebook‘s shares finally trading above their initial public offering price of $38 a share, Sheryl Sandberg is taking some money off the table.
Ms. Sandberg, the No. 2 executive at the social networking company, sold 2.37 million shares of stock on Wednesday at an average price of more than $38, according to a securities filing released late Friday, after the stock market closed.
Her proceeds amounted to about $91 million, according to the filing.
Like many technology company executives, Ms. Sandberg routinely sells small chunks of her holdings under automated trading plans. The latest sale also was part of an automated plan, according to the filing.
But it was by far the largest sale she had made since the company went public in April 2012, amounting to nearly 6 percent of the stock, restricted stock units and options she held at the time of the company’s I.P.O. in April 2012.
It was also the biggest stock sale reported by any Facebook executive since the company exceeded its I.P.O. price last month.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder and chief executive officer, has disposed of no shares other than to make charitable contributions.
Ms. Sandberg, who recently wrote the best-selling advice book “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,†has been the subject of frequent speculation that she will leave Facebook, perhaps for a job in government.
However, she has frequently said that she has no plans to quit the company. She still holds more than $1 billion of Facebook stock when options and restricted stock units are included.
A Facebook spokesman said the company never comments on share sales by its executives. The company also declined to make Ms. Sandberg available to discuss the matter.
Updated, 3:11 p.m. | Added commentary from Apple and Samsung and more background on the patent dispute.
Apple is on a winning streak in its ongoing patent feud with Samsung Electronics.
The United States International Trade Commission on Friday upheld a preliminary finding that Samsung’s mobile products had violated two Apple patents. The decision, unless vetoed by the president, will result in an import ban on some of Samsung’s mobile devices.
The commission’s order did not specifically list which Samsung products would be banned. But Susan Kohn Ross, an international trade lawyer for Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp, said that because Apple initially brought its lawsuit against Samsung in 2011, it likely would affect older products.
The decision marks another victory for Apple in its series of patent disputes with Samsung. On Saturday, the Obama administration vetoed the federal commission’s ban on Apple mobile products in a separate case brought by Samsung.
Also on Friday, Apple made arguments to a Federal Appeals Court for a permanent injunction against the sale of some Samsung mobile products, a request that was previously denied. The court has not yet made a decision.
Apple and Samsung, which together make all of the profits in the handset industry, have been fighting each other with patents in the United States and other countries. Last year, a California jury awarded Apple $1 billion in damages after deciding that Samsung had violated the American company’s mobile patents. The amount was later reduced to $599 million.
In Friday’s case with the International Trade Commission, it was Apple’s turn to take the gloves off. The company accused Samsung of violating four patents, including a design patent for the general look of an iPhone â€" a rectangle with rounded corners â€" and a utility patent for a method to detect when headphones are plugged into a device.
The commission said it found that Samsung had violated the patent regarding headphone detection and another patent covering the mechanics for touch-screen technology.
Samsung could implement workarounds to the design of its hardware and software to circumvent the ban. In a statement expressing its disappointment on Friday, the company suggested it was already doing that.
“Apple has been stopped from trying to use its overbroad design patents to achieve a monopoly on rectangles and rounded corners,†said Adam Yates, a Samsung spokesman. “Samsung will continue to launch many innovative products and we have already taken measures to ensure that all our of products will continue to be available in the United States.â€
Apple was pleased with the outcome.
“With today’s decision, the ITC has joined courts around the world in Japan, Korea, Germany, Netherlands and California by standing up for innovation and rejecting Samsung’s blatant copying of Apple’s products,†said Kristin Huguet, an Apple spokeswoman. “Protecting real innovation is what the patent system should be about.
The Obama administration, already facing political pressure, has 60 days to review the order. Earlier this week, the South Korean government expressed concern over the administration’s decision to overturn the trade commission’s order for a ban on some Apple products, calling the move an act of “protectionism.â€
Robert P. Merges, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said it was possible the administration would overturn Friday’s decision as part of a broader move to diminish the power of patent litigation as an industry weapon.
Anyone who writes about technology has suffered the ire of Apple, Microsoft and Amazon fans, all coming to the defense of their favorite technology companies. Sometimes, these readers can say some pretty mean things to writers and other people who comment on stories; all, strangely, in defense of a corporation.
But as I learned this week, compared to the photography community, technology fans seem tamer than a sloth.
In a Tool Kit article published on Thursday, I wrote about Leica’s digital cameras, where I noted that hard-core Leica owners “swear by its craftsmanship, lens quality and lack of bells and whistles.â€
Within hours of the piece being published online, my in-box filled with vehement messages from all kinds of photographers and camera fans. They took to Twitter and Facebook, too.
The Canon faithful attacked me for not writing a similar profile on Canon cameras, which, they noted that in their opinion are the only camera worth buying. The Nikon owners denounced Leica, calling it a waste. There were even film-camera enthusiasts who came to the defense of film. But none of the comments were more vehement than those of the Leica owners.
Leica owners picked through every detail of the article, many sending long e-mails to complain that the experts I quoted in the article were not really “experts†at all, and that they, the people sending me e-mails and leaving comments, knew more about Leica cameras.
One polite reader, Jack B. Siegel, pointed me to a Leica forum where the article I wrote was on the equivalent of a digital dartboard. When I asked Mr. Siegel, an attorney and photographer, if this was normal, he said that camera owners can be ruthless, even more so than the techies.
“I am endlessly astonished about the rigid and hostile views and arguments over nothing,†he said to me in an e-mail about the photography forums he visits. Mr. Siegel, who is currently writing a book on photography law, noted that photo Web sites have to go to great lengths to stave off angry comments and have a positive discussion.
It turns out he’s right. Passions can rise so high on many of the serious camera Web sites that reviews even come with warnings and disclaimers to readers.
“Basically, I am not interested in comments from those who just want to comment for negativity,†wrote Steve Huff, a photographer and camera reviewer, before he began a lengthy and detailed review of a new Leica camera.
“If you start posting hateful comments that attack me or anyone else here you will be deleted, plain and simple,†Mr. Huff added. “I have a low tolerance for hate, bitterness, jealousy or idiotic comments from people who have no clue what the facts are.â€
When Oprah Winfrey, one of the most famous television personalities and wealthiest women in the United States, walked into a luxury store in Zurich last month, she spied an expensive Tom Ford crocodile handbag in a locked case. The price: 35,000 Swiss francs, or the equivalent of about $38,000.
But Ms. Winfrey left the shop empty-handed. Not because she could not afford it, but Ms. Winfrey, who is black, was steered to less expensive handbags by a saleswoman even after trying several times to see the one she wanted.
During an interview with “Entertainment Tonight†this week that included a discussion about how she had experienced racism in her life, some of it subtle, sometimes more overt, she said she tried several times to see the bag.
“No, it’s too expensive,†Ms. Winfrey said the shopkeeper told her.
“One more time, I tried,†Ms. Winfrey said. “I said, ‘But I really do just want to see that one,’ and she said, ‘Oh, I don’t want to hurt your feelings,’ and I said: ‘O.K., thank you so much. You’re probably right, I can’t afford it.’ And I walked out of the store,†Oprah recounted. “Now why did she do that?â€
“It still exists,†said Nancy O’Dell, the interviewer, speaking about racism.
The Swiss-German language newspaper Blick did a video interview with Trudie Goetz, the owner of the store, which was called Trois Pommes and is on Zurich’s exclusive shopping street Bahnhofstrasse. Reuters reported that it also interviewed the owner on Friday.
“This is an absolute classic misunderstanding,†Ms. Goetz told Reuters. “This has nothing to do with racism. I am here for everyone and the customer is king.â€
Reuters reported that the bag was known as the “Jennifer†model and made by the designer Tom Ford. It quoted Ms. Goetz as saying the sales assistant had wanted to show Ms. Winfrey that it was also available in other materials, which may have given her the impression the shop did not want to sell it to her.
“Of course that’s not the case. Who wouldn’t want to sell a purse for 35,000 francs?†Ms. Goetz said.
Ms. Winfrey was in Zurich to attend the wedding of her friend, the American singer Tina Turner.
Forbes reported in June that Ms. Winfrey is No. 1 on its list of the most powerful celebrities. It said she made an estimated $77 million from June 2012 to June 2013, down from $165 million in the same period the previous year. “While she wasn’t the highest earner on our list, her money, mixed with strong fame scores in metrics like press mentions and social networking power, pushed her to the top,†it said.
Robert Chavez, the chief executive officer of Hermès USA, later appeared on Ms. Winfrey’s talk show to publicly apologize, after she expressed hurt when the company had done so in private.
As a toddler, Xzavier Davis-Bilbo loved to scramble around the house and yard. Nicknamed “X,†the boy imitated plays from his hometown Green Bay Packers. Then tragedy struck.
Walking across the street with his older sister, he was struck by an oncoming car and is now is paralyzed, living in a wheelchair, breathing through a ventilator. He was hit by a driver who was texting, her face so buried in her phone that she didn’t stop at the Stop sign, and was speeding, in a school zone.
“The worst thing that I can’t say to ‘X,’ which I used to be able to say all the time, is: ‘go in the yard and play,’t†said his mother, Valetta Bradford. “I can’t say that anymore because if we go play, we need to take the suction machine, we need to transfer him over to the ventilator for his chair. Before we can do anything, we need to do that first.â€
His story, and his mother’s reflections, are included in a new documentary by Werner Herzog, a Hollywood director who has to his credit movies like “Grizzly Man†and “Jack Reacher.â€
The documentary, called “From One Second to the Next,†explores the consequences of texting while driving, which the film says leads to 100,000 or more accidents a year.
The film, which had its premiere Thursday night in Los Angeles, is sponsored by the major mobile phone companies, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile. Research shows that drivers who text face a significantly increased crash risk.
However, public safety advocates have been frustrated that motorists continue to text and drive at high rates despite polls that show they understand the risks. Public safety advocates say they hope that behavior will drop through a combination of tough laws and enforcement, coupled with public awareness campaigns, like this latest documentary. At the same time, researchers have expressed concern that mobile phone companies, even as they urge people to not text and drive, continue to glorify the idea of an “always-on†lifestyle that encourages people to constantly talk, text and multitask.
