Remember when Microsoft paid $240 million to acquire a 1.6 percent share in Facebook, effectively valuing the company at a staggering $15 billion? No way Mark Zuckerberg's social-networking service is actually worth that much, right? Uh, right: according to Facebook's own internal valuation, the number is actually $3.75 billion, or one-quarter the software giant's valuation.

The drastically lower figure was unveiled in a lawsuit that the founders of ConnectU, a failed Harvard-based social-networking site, filed against Facebook. The quick recap: the ConnectU guys initially sued Zuckerberg for stealing the idea and relevant coding for Facebook from them back in 2003. They settled for an undisclosed amount of cash and Facebook stock in April, but tried to get out of the deal two months later, arguing that they were entitled to additional money and shares because Facebook had fraudulently lowballed the true value of the company to them. A judge rejected their argument, meaning that ConnectU will now have to make do with the original settlement. But in one of the few unsealed documents from the case, an "internal Facebook" valuation of $3.75 billion is proffered by Facebook's attorney.

So what's the reason for the $11 billion disparity? Well, for one, Microsoft bought more valuable preferred shares, and likely paid a premium in order to ensure that Microsoft rival Google and Facebook wouldn't talk. The lower-value shares (aka the ones that some Facebook employees recently tried to offload), on the other hand, are common stock, and are thus worth less.

The thing everyone wants to know, of course, is the actual value. The Times' professional estimation? "Probably somewhere between $15 billion and $3.75 billion." Thanks for narrowing it down, guys.