Valleywag has the scoop (updated below) that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apparently sold a small part of his very large stake in Facebook in return for $40 million in cold, hard cash. I would consider this the equivalent of a star college athlete buying insurance on their body against the millions of dollars they are going to make upon going pro – Zuckerberg of course stands to make billions of dollars upon Facebook going public (or being bought).

Zuckerberg now has almost $2 million dollars for every year he’s been alive (23), a pretty solid deal – likely for both parties involved. Maybe that’s is why he took so long to respond to the Beacon backlash – he was counting to 40 million.

[UPDATE]: Okay, looks like Valleywag was completely and utterly wrong. No cash-out, no $40 million, Owen Thomas was simply duped.