With Facebook making its initial public stock offering today, some Chinese netizens are reminded of the existence of a juicy social networking platform that is, unfortunately, blocked in their home country. many netizens would love to have a chance to create a Facebook profile and waste countless hours sharing articles, sharing pics, and trolling the news feed.

But what of Facebook’s future? Will many of its best employees fly the coop? Internet guru and frequent microblogger Kai-Fu Lee (@李开复) thinks so.

“One high level manager said: Because there is a secondary market, employees could have sold their shares prior to the IPO, so he was not worried about an exodus. But I think a lot of employees felt that the [shares] would jump in value after an IPO, and they also hoped to experience the IPO. Google had a serious [personnel] exodus after its IPO. [At that time], the entrepreneurs most sought after by Silicon Valley VCs very quickly went from being Google people to Facebook people.”
Let’s assume Facebook manages to hold on to at least some of its best and brightest. What would Facebook need to succeed in China, should it ever be allowed to enter? Lee shared a series of suggestions he says he gave the social networking site a year and a half ago. It appears to involve significant compromises:

“1) First, bring in entrepreneurs and developers and provide them with exquisite support, helping them to develop a global FB platform for games and services [that can] in the future fight [for market share] within China and become a competitive advantage.

2) Found a research center to hire cream-of-the-crop young engineers.

3) Use the ‘licensed technology’ method to enter the China market, and license the platform to partners to operate legally.

4) Choose partners with strong relationships with government and [service] operators.”

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