Commerce and trade are fundamentally based on exchanging asymmetries in one another’s ability to produce value at a given cost. As such, commerce intrinsically creates mutual value. That’s why it works. Moreover, the option to trade with more parties creates more value by fostering larger volumes of and more competitive trading.

Amidst the media frenzy surrounding Facebook’s S1 filing to go public, some people took pause today to reflect on what the IPO could mean for the social networking giant. Among them, Stephan Paternot shared an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg