Why Mark Zuckerberg panicked when he found out the date of Facebook's IPO

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Mark Zuckerberg Priscilla Chan wedding

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Facebook is one of the most successful companies in the world now, but five years ago it was dealing with the fallout of a disastrous initial public offering plagued by technical glitches.

It turns out that CEO Mark Zuckerberg originally tried to change the date of Facebook's IPO because of another major life event: his wedding.

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Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan were planning to throw a surprise wedding in their backyard, and Zuckerberg was worried about it taking place too close to his company's public debut.

"I remember the day David, our CFO, told me the IPO process would conclude on May 18," Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post celebrating his anniversary on Friday. "I was shocked. I closed the door and asked if it was possible to maybe do it a few days sooner."

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"He said it wouldn't be ready yet. I asked if maybe we could do it a week later, and he told me that May 18 was the day it would be ready so it needed to be that day. And that's how our IPO came to be the day before our wedding."

Zuckerberg ended up cutting his honeymoon in Rome, Italy, short to fly back and be with his employees after Facebook's IPO flop. Now he and Priscilla go on a honeymoon every year around their anniversary. This year they'll spend it in rural Maine as part of his tour of the US.

You can read Zuckerberg's full post about Facebook's IPO and his wedding anniversary below:

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