It’s like we’re back in the dot-com boom of the late-1990s: Facebook is allegedly going to go public soon and hopes to raise approximately $10 Billion which works out to a $100 billion company valuation. For those doing the math, that’s approximately $50 in Zuckerberg and his partners’ pockets for each daily user of the site. So, dear reader, the two of us are worth $100.

Not bad for a website started in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 by a kid barely old enough to grow facial hair.

The move is set to happen in May and will inevitably spark even more controversies over user data and privacy issues, though (as we all know) that will not stop Zuckerberg and his pals from getting paid.

But before any of this happens they will have to submit their paperwork to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC, to those in the know) as early as this month (January). Since last year Facebook’s valuation has doubled – from $50 billion to around $100 billion with annual revenue estimated at approximately $2 billion per year.

Of course, Zuckerberg didn’t get this far on his own; personal and professional connections allowed him to build a formidable rolodex of contacts in the ‘industry’ who were lucky enough to lend their funding to the development of Facebook. ‘Like’ buttons, poke-functionality and geo-tagging do not come cheap. Some of these investors include Microsoft, European Founders Fund, Meritech Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs and most notably, Elevation Partners which was co-founded by U2 frontman/mouthpiece Bono. For the full list of investors, click here.

This is further proof that the Internet is still very much like the Wild Wild West: prospectors (NOT pirates, that distinction is very important) are able to build a simple, addictive service, co-opt peoples’ most personal information and get obscenely rich for their efforts.  But hey, illegally downloading music and movies is pretty horrible too, right?