I-Banker incentives are complicated. On the one hand, potential clients select among them based on their ability to generate wealth for the client (pushing IPO prices up). On the other hand, they have tremendous opportunity for self-dealing transactions (pushing the IPO price down). The balance is apparently in flux.

Facebook may have been unusual because Zuckerberg's particular special skills seem to resolve around analyzing and monetizing social interactions. Those skills may have helped him maneuver the I-bankers better than the average going-public entrepreneur.

In a couple years we'll know whether the Facebook IPO was a trend or a blip in the pattern of IPOs. Blip supports the Zuckerberg-IPO-insights theory, while a larger trend suggests the opposite.