“As of today, Facebook now serves 300 million people across the world,” founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in one of his typically somnolent blog posts. “It’s a large number, but the way we think about this is that we’re just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone. We’re also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I’m pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.”

This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.

Interesting remark. It would seem then that Facebook has no interest whatsoever in selling itself off to Google (GOOG) or anyone else. It would much rather go public.

UPDATE: A couple of quick points courtesy Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg: Growth is apparently widespread, and while it’s true that 70 percent of Facebook’s user base is now outside the U.S., growth in the U.S. is not slowing.

[Image credit: San Francisco skyline by m.john16/Flickr]

Now another prominent Googler has train-hopped to the popular social-networking company as well. As first reported by BoomTown, Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications and public affairs at Google, is leaving the search sovereign to become Facebook’s vice president of communications and public policy.

“[Elliot Schrage] will be responsible for developing the key messages we want people to understand about our products, our business and the growing global importance of social networking and what we do,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an email to employees announcing the hire. “The goal here is to help people understand how the Internet can strengthen people’s relationships. Elliot will direct our efforts to work with users, media, governments and other entities around the world to ensure that Facebook’s policies are transparent, responsive, effective and are recognized as being those things. … This is a really important role for us and one that we’ve been trying to find the right person for a while. Elliot’s role will be critical to helping us scale based on our culture that values transparency, openness and honest internal communications.”

“Elliot’s role will be critical to helping us scale based on our culture that values transparency, openness, and honest internal communications”?

Clearly, Zuckerberg meant “build from the ground up a culture that values transparency, openness and honest internal communications.” Because it’s only been about six months since the Beacon fiasco, which demonstrated how grievously the company was lacking in those qualities (see “DiaperFetishFactory.com Is Sending a Story to Your Profile,” “Epicurious Has Added a Potential Privacy Violation to Your Facebook Profile,” “Fiascobook,” and “Fiascobook, Redux“).

Perhaps if Facebook recruits enough former Googlers, it too will be able to lay claim to a silly informal motto like “Don’t Be Evil.”

Google’s stock fell as low as $435.78 at one point, slipping below the company’s 52-week low of $437, set nearly one year ago on March 5, 2007.

Wonder if falling to your 52-week low is psychologically as important a milestone as passing the $700-a-share mark?

Quite a coup for Facebook. As Google’s vice president of global online sales and operations, Sandberg managed the division that handles sales for about 99% of the company’s advertisers. Her absence at Google (GOOG) will almost certainly be felt as deeply as her presence at Facebook, which stands to benefit a great deal from her experience building Google’s online sales and operations organization. Said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “She has just about the most relevant industry experience for Facebook, especially since we need to scale our operations and scale them globally.”

Interesting to see a Google veteran like Sandberg jump ship for Facebook. Especially after the departures of
Gideon Yu, now Facebook’s CFO, and Benjamin Ling, who heads up Facebook’s developer platform. Perhaps the search giant is beginning to suffer from the same sort of brain drain it brought to bear on the industry a few years back. Recall this 2005 quote from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman?

Google is doing more damage to innovation in the Valley right now than Microsoft ever did. It’s largely that they’re hiring up so many talented people, and the fact they’re working on so many different things. It’s harder for start-ups to do interesting stuff right now.”