The tragedy of Facebook

A version of this article first appeared on fool.com.

"How do I buy a stock?"

That was the subject line of an email passed along to me the morning of Facebook's (NAS: FB) IPO. It was from a friend of a friend, wondering how to buy a stock because she was looking to sink $40,000 -- her entire life savings, previously set aside for a down payment on a house -- toward the Facebook IPO.