Through the golden heart of every world-changing startup pulses an avaricious get-rich-quick scheme. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the billionaire-boy cofounders of Google, established this doing-well-by-doing-good myth. But Mark Zuckerberg hasn't been able to make the same magic happen for his employees. In his efforts to make good by them, he may end up quashing a nascent market in Facebook shares.It's not for lack of trying. Silicon Valley's stock-options millionaire make money by getting the right to buy shares at a low price and selling them for a higher one. Facebook's soaring valuation — Microsoft invested $240 million for a tiny stake, in a deal which valued all of Facebook at $15 billion — threatened to undo that equation. How is Facebook supposed to soar past $15 billion in value? So Zuckerberg & Co. turned to issuing restricted stock units, or RSUs, instead. (Restricted stock units are common at large companies like Google and Microsoft, but unusual for a company Facebook's size and age.) The restricted-stock plan has created a new complication: Once it has more than 500 RSU holders, SEC regulations may require Facebook to start publishing its financials, even if it doesn't conduct an initial public offering. Facebook's revenues still aren't pretty enough for public exposure. Facebook's lawyers have sought, and obtained, an exemption. Part of the argument they made is that issuing RSUs won't create a market in Facebook shares. Facebook, unusually for most of Silicon Valley's private companies, has not had many restrictions on what employees and other shareholders could do with the shares they own. Most have rules that force shareholders to offer shares to the company first — a right of first refusal — or outright prohibitions on unauthorized sales. But the letter Facebook sent to the SEC says that even when the stock units convert to common shares, they have limits on their sale: "... the Plan has been structured to preclude any trading of RSUs or any interest therein from developing." Even if Facebook permits an employee convert their stock units to shares and sell them, the company can then prevent the buyer from selling. Employees at Facebook — especially the early ones, whose holdings are now substantial — have been agitating for some time to sell their shares, and there are still, even with the public markets taking a beating, interested buyers. Zuckerberg finally bowed to this pressure and set up a program, now underway, to let employees cash out up to $900,000 in shares. (Note the symbolism of the figure: No one will become a millionaire.) But that may be it. If Facebook extends its stock-sale restrictions to common shares, not just the restricted-stock units, both employees and the investors so eager to snap up their shares will be stuck, until Facebook sells out or goes public. Zuckerberg has made it clear he thinks both of those events are far off — and the 24-year-old CEO still owns 27 percent of the company and more or less controls the board. It's a dicey gamble. The prospect of selling Facebook shares privately must surely have attracted some employees who counted on a relatively quick cash-out. But shutting down the prospect of further stock sales will make sure the Facebookers who remain will be more committed to the company for the long haul. Zuckerberg doesn't have much choice. As long as Facebook employees can find buyers for their shares, they'll be tempted to leave rather than stay at a company going through a tumultous adolescence. Already, the company has had far more turnover, from bottom to top, than Google did. Not a single high-ranking exec left Google for the first six years of its existence. Facebook has lost three of its four cofounders, and numerous people underneath them, from former COO Owen Van Natta on down. No wonder Zuckerberg wants to slam the exit door closed.

When the NYT Company slashed its dividend and announced ominous October revenues yesterday, we asked you, our kindly readers: Might this company go into bankruptcy? If so, when? And if not, what should they do? Many of you answered! And virtually every viable option for the company was suggested at least once. The Sulzberger family should just read the following list of your responses and pick one, depending on how optimistic they're feeling today:
The optimist:

It's funny and meta to watch Julia Allison get profiled. Since she's already done all the work for us in real time—chronicling her thoughts and moods and outfits on her blog—a profile seems beside the point and out of date by the time it goes to print—we've already seen those outfits and photos, and we already know what events she's been to. Journalists are usually left baffled upon their first introduction to the JA force of nature—when we've been collectively getting her IMs for years! Australia is just now catching on to this Internet fameball/oversharing thing, putting Allison on the cover of a magazine—and including her close personal friend, and also our former editor, Emily Gould. (At this point, Em seems like she wants to erase the Internet and spend a month in a sensory-deprivation chamber.) The profile is very similar to Allison's Wired cover story, except for perhaps the journalist's outright dislike for her subjects.She calls Allison's two sidekicks Mary and Megan "equally terrifying alpha girlfriends." (Touché!) Also: "I meet Gould in the painfully sceney Balthazar cafe in New York’s Soho (her choice)." Dang. However, we finally learn how Julia thinks her baffling Nonsociety startup will earn money!

Please direct your tips, suggestions, love letters, and/or complaints to tips@cityfile.com. Your anonymity is guaranteed. Haven't registered for a free user account yet? When you sign up, you can post comments, upload you own pics, rate people, track your favorites, and more. [Cityfile User Signup]

High profile press fight! People magazine editor Larry Hackett just sent out an internal memo blasting the page one New York Times story today about People's alleged shady dealings with Angelina Jolie. Specifically, the Times cited two anonymous sources "with knowledge of the bidding" for the photos of Jolie and Brad Pitt's most recent newborns—which cost People $14 million—who said that there was an formal agreement that "obliged" the magazine to offer only positive coverage. Of course, as Hackett acknowledges, their coverage was positive; but he strongly asserts that the magazine would never "purposely slant coverage as condition for acquiring pictures." And indeed, the Times may have oversold that angle in their story. There's certainly a difference between what Jolie asks for, and what a magazine would explicitly "promise" to do. Read his full memo below:

Muted Screams: Oprah Winfrey's annual "Favorite Things" episode airs this Wednesday, and though struggling people could really use some big-ticket items in the midst of our recession, the cruel daytime doyenne is going to reward her audience members with stuff they probably could have gotten already. "They're some of Oprah's favorite things, but this time there's a twist...they cost next to nothing!" said an Oprah rep in a statement. "You'll meet a mom who shows us how to create a one-of-a-kind treasure that comes straight from the heart. Then, one family talks about their very own tradition that doesn’t cost a cent." What, "love" or some shit? What a rip-off! At least give 'em some sweater-capes and calypso music, O! [Us]

NY mag's fashion blog The Cut ran into the Vogue editrix Wintour at the National Book Awards this week. They politely (we assume!) asked her about the rumors that she might retire. They are (sort of) substantive rumors and it's a question about her job, not her personal life, so you'd think that she'd respond as courteously as she could. Except, no she didn't. She gave 'em the ol' heave-ho:

♦ If you have the nerve to approach Anna Wintour at a public event and ask her an uncomfortable question, don't be the least bit surprised if tells you to get lost. [The Cut]
♦ Madonna's latest fashion faux-pas? A green Louis Vuitton dress by Marc Jacobs, which "looks as if someone poured a wheelbarrow of lawn clippings all over her," bitches fashion critic Hilary Alexander. "Just another horrific hiccup in the wardrobe of a woman of wealth, but no taste." [Telegraph]
♦ Karolina Kurkova is the world's sexiest woman, according to E!, belly button or no belly button. [Reuters]
♦ Yes, it's 30 degrees outside, so why not distract yourself by watching footage of Brazil's Clara Rio Summer event, including Natalia Vodianova and Byrdie Bell showing off on the dance floor? [Vogue UK]

Into the jaws of an advertising recession comes the launch of the most hubristic media venture we've heard of: a "super-stealth new online company backed and funded by some legendary billionaires." The requirements for the top job go from laugh line to laugh line.The startup seeks a candidate who is an editor-in-chief at a top business magazine like Forbes, BusinessWeek, or Portfolio. All, mind you, based in New York. And yet he or she must live in San Francisco. Oh, and having worked at Yahoo, Google, or eBay is a "big plus." All of this to run a website targeted at "SMB" — advertiser jargon for "small and medium businesses." Most small-business publications fail to draw an audience, precisely because they think of their readers' businesses, contemptuously, as "small." Too bad. In every other way, these guys are dreaming impossibly big. This job description is curiously similar to one posted in October with the same Gmail address as a contact. The main difference? The newer listing plays up the billionaire backers, and no longer mentions that it is "bankrolled by a respected 50+ year old offline company." A 50-year-old company? Sounds way too old media. Here's the job listing:

General Motors now says it plans to return two of its five corporate jets following a wee bit of scandal earlier this week. But it's not as if the company simply caved in the face of bad press! "G.M. is saying that the timing is coincidental since it was already in the process of returning two of its corporate jets." Of course it was! Here's a pic of one of the company's Gulfstreams on the tarmac at LaGuardia. [Dealbook]

President-elect Barack Obama has picked Tim Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, rather than former Harvard University president Larry Summers, as Treasury secretary. That makes it unlikely that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who worked for Summers when he ran the Treasury for Bill Clinton, will return to Washington.

General Motors caught a leeetle bit of flack this week for flying its executives to Washington on a private jet in order to beg for a taxpayer bailout. "Hey," said politicians, the media, and the general public, "you have less than zero money. Should you really have spent thousands on a private jet?" We would also add, "Shouldn't you have driven a car?" Later GM and its fellow broke automakers left Washington with no money, making this one of the colossal PR fuckups of 2008, and possibly of the preceding decade as well. But everything is different now, because GM is going to have somewhat fewer private jets. So please give them some multiple of billions of dollars okay? They did have five company planes. Now they're cutting down to just three. Tightening the belt!

Bite-Sized: Tyra Banks welcomed Twilight-ers Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner to her program today, where Pattinson for once proceeded to fulfill the wish of every woman he's encountered since beginning his vampire flick's press tour. Lautner looked on with a smile, shielding his disappointment that he was not invited to feast on the host, but clearly relieved to see the host-devours-guest trend that claimed co-star Kristen Stewart reversed in time for his daytime-TV appearance. Click through for the full-size image. [Tyra Banks Show]

Barack Obama was elected just a few weeks ago, and he does not take office until late January. But everyone is so excited! He got his transition website up and running right away, and everyone in America immediately clicked on the "jobs" tab, because everyone in America needs a job. Sorry, guys—they've already received 200,000 applications. Which is unprecedented for an incoming administration. We did the research! In December of 2000, right after it finally became clear that George W. Bush would be our next president and the world was therefore doomed, the New York Times reported that there was a surge of applications for jobs in his administration too. That surge was totally pathetic, though, in retrospect:

So much for doom-mongering and talk of post-election crashes: The Huffington Post, founded by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, has supposedly landed $15 million in financing from Oak Investment Partners. Or maybe not! [PaidContent]

It's time to haul out our favorite "musty old claptrap": Defamer's Arrested Development Film Tracker™! Today, THR says that two important AD contracts have finally been signed, locking down a studio (Fox Searchlight) and paving the way for an actual script to be written. Then, though, the trade throws out a bizarre curveball about just who exactly will be directing the movie:

♦ Rumor has it Robert De Niro's Ago in Tribeca will be shutting down to make way for a new project by Jean-Georges Vongerichten. [Eater]
♦ John Dory hasn't opened yet, but the restaurant's reservation line has and it's booked through December 4th. [GS]
♦ Eric Ripert's suggestions on where to find the best fish tacos in NYC. [GS]
♦ Brother Jimmy's is being sued by a woman who says she was "engulfed in flames" after a bartender's stunt went wrong. [NYP]
♦ New York waiters report customers have been tipping less since the recession began. [GS]

A tipster tells us that Palm, the troubled smartphone maker, is laying off 10 percent of its staff. I called a spokeswoman at the company, who confirmed the layoffs but not the number of employees affected; Palm, at last count, had about 1,050 employees. She also said the company would make "program cuts" — Valleyspeak for dropping some future products. Palm has been hammered by competition from Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry; it is in the midst of a turnaround led by its chairman, Jonathan Rubinstein, a former Apple executive and Steve Jobs confidant. Rubinstein, left, has hired many former Apple employees at Palm — so much so that, rumor has it, Jobs called Rubinstein up to scream about it. But the layoffs and program cuts suggest he may not be able to complete his ambitions for a complete revamp of Palm's product line.

I know that you will probably stab me in the heart with a wooden stake for doing this, but I'm going to write another post about Twilight. You there, under the rock? Twilight is: spectacularly shitty book series by Stephanie Meyer and now a movie (out today! it's bad!) about a dimensionless girl named Bella and the suave sex vampire that she loves, named Edward. It's swoony moony goony shit, and, again, is terribly, monstrously, embarrassing-for-the-whole-of-the-craftly bad. So why on earth is it so popular, and what is Twilight, I mean really what is it? I will attempt to answer those IMPORTANT questions after the jump. Then you can elucidate (please! please!) in the comments.

According to a new poll, 59 percent of New Yorkers still believe Michael Bloomberg is doing an "excellent" or "good" job as mayor. That's down from 68 percent a month ago and is below 60 percent for the first time since August 2005. [City Room]