It's nice to do an IPO where your investors get value straightaway and the share price pops up; it proves you left something on the table for them.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
From the business point of view, always encouraging the people in our company to own stock in the company, and if we're going to build something great, to have a lot of people share in the benefits of that greatness.
We couldn't buy Google on the IPO, but I knew I wanted to own it. I was gonna go big. It came out and went down a bit. I got distracted by something and didn't get in.
When companies are private, founders can share more about their future dreams with investors; report less; and the shares are illiquid, constraining short-term changes in valuation.
Once investors come in, it's hardly your company anymore!
If I ever took a business public, I wouldn't want to take the shares off the table. I don't want people thinking I'm doing it just to make money and then going to run for the hills. I think that's a very important distinction.
Regardless of what the future holds, intelligent investment in common stocks offer a solid route for a reasonable return on investment going forward.
What the investment community does like is short-term measures designed to boost share prices.
The ability to please your shareholders comes because of what you do for clients.
The IPO is no exit for the entrepreneur; it's the start of purgatory.
We will never sell or have an IPO. What that does is suddenly flushes you with cash. It makes you now work for a group of stockholders, who, again, put pressure and temptations on your true-blueness.