“
To me, Elon is the shining example of how Silicon Valley might be able to reinvent itself and be more relevant than chasing these quick IPOs and focusing on getting incremental products out,
”
”
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is Shaping our Future)
“
Happy you’re living your life, ipo. But I’m fuckin’ thrilled you’re choosing to live it with me. I love you.
”
”
Layla Frost (Best Kase Scenario (Hyde, #2))
“
In October 2014, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and raised $25 billion, marking it as the largest IPO in history. Alibaba is also one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world.
”
”
Jason Navallo (Thrive: 30 Inspirational Rags-to-Riches Stories)
“
closed at $1.19 per share. Weighing the evidence objectively, the intelligent investor should conclude that IPO does not stand only for “initial public offering.” More accurately, it is also shorthand for: It’s Probably Overpriced, Imaginary Profits Only, Insiders’ Private Opportunity, or Idiotic, Preposterous, and Outrageous.
”
”
Benjamin Graham (The Intelligent Investor)
“
You cannot earn $10 million. Nobody earns millions. You can rob, you can steal, or you can make $10 million in an IPO, but never earn so much. So just forget all this saving and consulting bullshit.
”
”
Ravindra Shukla (A Maverick Heart: Between Love and Life)
“
You will never be allowed to buy the really good IPOs at the initial offering price. The hot IPOs are snapped up by the big institutional investors or the very best wealthy clients of the underwriting firm.
”
”
Burton G. Malkiel (A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing)
“
To me, Elon is the shining example of how Silicon Valley might be able to reinvent itself and be more relevant than chasing these quick IPOs and focusing on getting incremental products out,” said Edward Jung, a famed software engineer and inventor. “Those things are important, but they are not enough. We need to look at different models of how to do things that are longer term in nature and where the technology is more integrated.
”
”
Ashlee Vance (Elon Musk: Inventing the Future)
“
When you're running a public company, you're held accountable to a multitude of stakeholders all of whom require explanation for your performance.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
The IPO is going to happen next month. Lots of Facebook employees will make millions. Many have already announced that they’re leaving. (I’m oversimplifying only a little to say they divide into two camps: those who want to create their own start-ups and those who want to become DJs.)
”
”
Sarah Wynn-Williams (Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism)
“
We talked about our IPO like it was dues ex machina coming down from high to save us
”
”
Anna Wiener (Uncanny Valley)
“
the FBI has been investigating the firm for over a year. Shortly after their stock went public, they got a tip that the market listing was fraudulently overstated in connection with the IPO.
”
”
Laura Dave (The Last Thing He Told Me (Hannah Hall, #1))
“
And though Russia does officially have a free market, with mega-corporations floating their record-breaking IPOs on the global stock exchanges, most of the owners are friends of the President. Or else they are oligarchs who officially pledge that everything that belongs to them is also the President’s when he needs it: “All that I have belongs to the state,” says Oleg Deripaska, one of the country’s richest men. This isn’t a country in transition but some sort of postmodern dictatorship that uses the language and institutions of democratic capitalism for authoritarian ends.
”
”
Peter Pomerantsev (Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia)
“
Kuamini (mbali na imani, ambayo ni nia ya kujua kisichoweza kujulikana) ni kwa ajili ya vitu usivyoweza kuvielezea. Unaamini kwamba siku moja dawa ya UKIMWI au saratani itapatikana mahali fulani, ilhali huwezi kufanya majaribio ya kisayansi kulithibitisha hilo. Unaweza kusubiri hata miaka mia, lakini kama bado dawa haijapatikana, unaweza kusubiri hata miaka mingine mia. Kuamini ni kujifanya kujua (na mara nyingi kujifanya kujua ni uongo) na kuamini hakuhitaji maarifa. Kujua kunahitaji maarifa na ni kuamini unakoweza kukuthibitisha. Ukiniuliza kama simu yangu ipo mfukoni nitakwambia ndiyo ipo, kwa sababu nitaingiza mkono mfukoni na kuitoa na kuiona. Siamini kama ipo mfukoni, najua.
”
”
Enock Maregesi
“
investors who pay attention to the economy can be more successful because they can take advantage of impending changes. While everyone else is focused on what’s happening right now, economically savvy investors can focus on what’s coming
”
”
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
“
It’s crazy to think that tragedy gets more attention than good news. I mean, not one of my friends texted about the IPO. But I guess that’s true of people in general. They only see what they want to see, even when the truth is right in front of them.
”
”
Kaira Rouda (The Next Wife)
“
A rupee invested in Page Industries’ IPO in March 2007 is worth Rs 34 presently (in April 2016), implying a compounded annual return of 47 per cent. That same rupee would be worth just Rs 2 if invested in the Sensex, implying a CAGR of 8 per cent. Thus
”
”
Saurabh Mukherjea (The Unusual Billionaires)
“
There is no question that the losing IPOs far outnumber the winners. Of the 8,606 firms examined, the returns on 6,796 of these firms, or 79 percent, have subsequently underperformed the returns on a representative small stock index, and almost half the firms have underper-formed by more than 10 percent per year.
”
”
Jeremy J. Siegel (Stocks for the Long Run: The Definitive Guide to Financial Market Returns & Long-Term Investment Strategies)
“
Many new investors, eager to see quick profits, need to develop the patience and research skills necessary for successful long-term investing.
”
”
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
“
Being thoughtful makes you different.
”
”
Elizabeth Joy Zalman (Founder vs Investor: The Honest Truth About Venture Capital from Startup to IPO)
“
Crunchbase may be some of the best money I’ve ever spent. It’s a database of, theoretically, every round of
”
”
Elizabeth Joy Zalman (Founder vs Investor: The Honest Truth About Venture Capital from Startup to IPO)
“
It is dangerous not to care for the small things that need you.
”
”
Sana Takeda (The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night)
“
Learning is earning.
”
”
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
“
Diversification, the easy accessibility of funds, and having a skilled professional money manager working to make your investment grow are the three most prominent reasons that mutual funds have become so popular.
”
”
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
“
the utilities and services sectors tend to perform well during an economic downturn; and as that downturn segues into a full recession, the technology, cyclicals, and industrial sectors will start to flourish. As the economy begins
”
”
Michele Cagan (Investing 101: From Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an Essential Primer on Building a Profitable Portfolio (Adams 101 Series))
“
John Battelle: With the benefit of hindsight, Google’s IPO in 2004 was as important as the Netscape IPO in 1995. Everyone got excited about the internet in the late nineties, but the truth was a very small percentage of the world used it. Google went public after the dot-com crash and reestablished the web as a medium. Web 1.0 was a low-bandwidth, underdeveloped toy. Web 2.0 is a robust broadband medium with three billion people using it for everything from conducting business to communicating with your friends and family.
”
”
Adam Fisher (Valley of Genius: The Uncensored History of Silicon Valley (As Told by the Hackers, Founders, and Freaks Who Made It Boom))
“
Here is the paradox that libertarians just don’t get: the Internet was conceived and paid for by the US government. It was not a product of the free market as we think of it today—the realization of some young entrepreneur’s dreams. It was painstakingly researched and executed by a bunch of academics for whom IPO billions weren’t a reason to work. Rather, these people were fundamentally convinced that they could make the world a better place with their inventions. Every piece of code—HTML, TCP/IP—was donated to the ARPANET project royalty-free.
”
”
Jonathan Taplin (Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy)
“
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? The lessons of market history are clear. Styles and fashions in investors’ evaluations of securities can and often do play a critical role in the pricing of securities. The stock market at times conforms well to the castle-in-the-air theory. For this reason, the game of investing can be extremely dangerous. Another lesson that cries out for attention is that investors should be very wary of purchasing today’s hot “new issue.” Most initial public offerings underperform the stock market as a whole. And if you buy the new issue after it begins trading, usually at a higher price, you are even more certain to lose. Investors would be well advised to treat new issues with a healthy dose of skepticism. Certainly investors in the past have built many castles in the air with IPOs. Remember that the major sellers of the stock of IPOs are the managers of the companies themselves. They try to time their sales to coincide with a peak in the prosperity of their companies or with the height of investor enthusiasm for some current fad. In such cases, the urge to get on the bandwagon—even in high-growth industries—produced a profitless prosperity for investors.
”
”
Burton G. Malkiel (A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing)
“
But was the Newton a failure? The timing of Newton’s entry into the handheld market was akin to the timing of the Apple II into the desktop market. It was a market-creating, disruptive product targeted at an undefinable set of users whose needs were unknown to either themselves or Apple. On that basis, Newton’s sales should have been a pleasant surprise to Apple’s executives: It outsold the Apple II in its first two years by a factor of more than three to one. But while selling 43,000 units was viewed as an IPO-qualifying triumph in the smaller Apple of 1979, selling 140,000 Newtons was viewed as a failure in the giant Apple of 1994.
”
”
Clayton M. Christensen (Disruptive Innovation: The Christensen Collection (The Innovator's Dilemma, The Innovator's Solution, The Innovator's DNA, and Harvard Business Review ... Will You Measure Your Life?") (4 Items))
“
Amazon made its first 10x improvement in a particularly visible way: they offered at least 10 times as many books as any other bookstore. When it launched in 1995, Amazon could claim to be “Earth’s largest bookstore” because, unlike a retail bookstore that might stock 100,000 books, Amazon didn’t need to physically store any inventory—it simply requested the title from its supplier whenever a customer made an order. This quantum improvement was so effective that a very unhappy Barnes & Noble filed a lawsuit three days before Amazon’s IPO, claiming that Amazon was unfairly calling itself a “bookstore” when really it was a “book broker.
”
”
Peter Thiel (Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future)
“
There are 2 billion people who have no bank accounts at all. There are another 4 billion people who have very limited access to banking. Banking without international currencies, banking without international markets, banking without liquidity. Bitcoin isn’t about the 1 billion. Bitcoin is all about the other 6 1/2. The people who are currently cut off from international banking. What do you think happens when you suddenly are able to turn a simple text-messaging phone in the middle of a rural area in Nigeria, connected to a solar panel, into a bank terminal? Into a Western Union remittance terminal? Into an international loan-origination system? A stock market? An IPO engine? At first, nothing, but give it a few years.
”
”
Andreas M. Antonopoulos (The Internet of Money)
“
People who think they need high-pressure methods or tools—pinch collars or electric appliances—to train a dog have no clue how to train a dog well. Training, both as a hobby and as a profession, should be pleasant for the dog and the handler. It should be a successful learning process that yields progress for both parties. If training becomes a torment for the handler or the dog, then both parties are on the wrong track.
”
”
Resi Gerritsen (K9 Schutzhund Training: A Manual for IPO Training through Positive Reinforcement (K9 Professional Training Series))
“
This book has pushed back against the randomness thesis, emphasizing instead the skill in venture capital. It has done so for four reasons. First, the existence of path dependency does not actually prove that skill is absent. Venture capitalists need skill to enter the game: as the authors of the NBER paper say, path dependency can only influence which among the many skilled players gets to be the winner. Nor is it clear that path dependency explains why some skilled operators beat other ones. The finding that a partnership’s future IPO rate rises by 1.6 percentage points is not particularly strong, and the history recounted in these pages shows that path dependency is frequently disrupted.[5] Despite his powerful reputation, Arthur Rock was unsuccessful after his Apple investment. Mayfield was a leading force during the 1980s; it too faded. Kleiner Perkins proves that you can dominate the Valley for a quarter of a century and then decline precipitously. Accel succeeded early, hit a rough patch, and then built itself back. In an effort to maintain its sense of paranoia and vigilance, Sequoia once produced a slide listing numerous venture partnerships that flourished and then failed. “The Departed,” it called them. The second reason to believe in skill lies in the origin story of some partnerships. Occasionally a newcomer breaks into the venture elite in such a way that skill obviously does matter. Kleiner Perkins became a leader in the business because of Tandem and Genentech. Both companies were hatched from within the KP office and actively shaped by Tom Perkins; there was nothing lucky about this. Tiger Global and Yuri Milner invented the art of late-stage venture capital. They had a genuinely novel approach to tech investing; they offered much more than the equivalent of another catchy tune competing against others. Paul Graham’s batch-processing method at Y Combinator offered an equally original approach to seed-stage investing. A clever innovation, not random fortune, explains Graham’s place in venture history.
”
”
Sebastian Mallaby (The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future)
“
The public offering occurred exactly one week after Toy Story’s opening. Jobs had gambled that the movie would be successful, and the risky bet paid off, big-time. As with the Apple IPO, a celebration was planned at the San Francisco office of the lead underwriter at 7 a.m., when the shares were to go on sale. The plan had originally been for the first shares to be offered at about $14, to be sure they would sell. Jobs insisted on pricing them at $22, which would give the company more money if the offering was a success. It was, beyond even his wildest hopes. It exceeded Netscape as the biggest IPO of the year. In the first half hour, the stock shot up to $45, and trading had to be delayed because there were too many buy orders. It then went up even further, to $49, before settling back to close the day at $39. Earlier that year Jobs had been hoping to find a buyer for Pixar that would let him merely recoup the $50 million he had put in. By the end of the day the shares he had retained—80% of the company—were worth more than twenty times that, an astonishing $1.2 billion. That was about five times what he’d made when Apple went public in 1980.
”
”
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
“
Yes, that’s the one. Aaron, I want you to acquire the company tomorrow. Start low, but I want you to end up offering at least fifteen million for it. Actually, how many partners are there?” “I see two registered partners. Michael Teo and Adrian Balakrishnan.” “Okay, bid thirty million.” “Charlie, you can’t be serious? The book value on that company is only—” “No, I’m dead serious,” Charlie cut in. “Start a fake bidding war between some of our subsidiaries if you have to. Now listen carefully. After the deal is done, I want you to vest Michael Teo, the founding partner, with class-A stock options, then I want you to bundle it with that Cupertino start-up we acquired last month and the software developer in Zhongguancun. Then, I want us to do an IPO on the Shanghai Stock Exchange next month.” “Next month?” “Yes, it has to happen very quickly. Put the word out on the street, let your contacts at Bloomberg TV know about it, hell, drop a hint to Henry Blodget if you think it will help drive up the share price. But at the end of the day I want those class-A stock options to be worth at least $250 million. Keep it off the books, and set up a shell corporation in Liechtenstein if you have to. Just make sure there are no links back to me. Never, ever.
”
”
Kevin Kwan (Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians, #1))
“
What’s an IPO, exactly? A company decides it wants to “float” part of its equity on the public markets, allowing employees and founders to sell private shares to pay them off for years of service, as well as sell shares out of the corporate treasury to have some money in the bank. Large investment banks (such as my former employer Goldman Sachs) form what’s called a “syndicate” (“mafia” might be a better term) wherein they offer to effectively buy those shares from Facebook, and then sell them into the capital markets, usually by pushing it via their sales force onto wealthy clients or institutional investors. That syndicate either guarantees a price (“firm commitment”) or promises to get the best price it can (“best effort”). In the former case, the bank is taking real execution risk, and stands to lose money if it doesn’t engineer a “pop” in the stock on opening day. To mitigate the risk, the bank convinces the offering company to expect a lower price, while simultaneously jacking up what real price the market will bear with a zealous sales pitch to the market’s deepest pockets. Thus, it is absolutely jejune to think that a stock’s rise on opening day is due to clamoring and unexpected interest. Similar to Captain Renault in Casablanca, Wall Street bankers are shocked—shocked!—that there should be such a large and positive price dislocation in the market they just rigged.
”
”
Antonio García Martínez (Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley)
“
Biblia pamoja na historia vinatwambia kuwa mitume kumi na wawili wa Yesu Kristo waliamua kufa kinyama kama mfalme wao alivyokufa, kwa sababu walikataa kukana imani yao juu ya Yesu Kristo.
Mathayo alikufa kwa ajili ya Ukristo nchini Ethiopia kwa jeraha lililotokana na kisu kikali, Marko akavutwa na farasi katika mitaa ya Alexandria nchini Misri mpaka akafa, kwa sababu alikataa kukana jina la Yesu Kristo.
Luka alinyongwa nchini Ugiriki kwa sababu ya kuhubiri Injili ya Yesu Kristo katika nchi ambapo watu hawakumtambua Yesu.
Yohana alichemshwa katika pipa la mafuta ya moto katika kipindi cha mateso makubwa ya Wakristo nchini Roma, lakini kimiujiza akaponea chupuchupu, kabla ya kufungwa katika gereza la kisiwa cha Patmo (Ugiriki) ambapo ndipo alipoandika kitabu cha Ufunuo. Mtume Yohana baadaye aliachiwa huru na kurudi Uturuki, ambapo alimtumikia Bwana kama Askofu wa Edessa. Alikufa kwa uzee, akiwa mtume pekee aliyekufa kwa amani.
Petro alisulubiwa kichwa chini miguu juu katika msalaba wa umbo la X kulingana na desturi za kikanisa za kipindi hicho, kwa sababu aliwaambia maadui zake ya kuwa alijisikia vibaya kufa kama alivyokufa mfalme wake Yesu Kristo.
Yakobo ndugu yake na Yesu (Yakobo Mkubwa), kiongozi wa kanisa mjini Yerusalemu, alirushwa kutoka juu ya mnara wa kusini-mashariki wa hekalu aliloliongoza la Hekalu Takatifu (zaidi ya futi mia moja kwenda chini) na baadaye kupigwa kwa virungu mpaka akafa, alipokataa kukana imani yake juu ya Yesu Kristo.
Yakobo mwana wa Zebedayo (Yakobo Mdogo) alikuwa mvuvi kabla Yesu Kristo hajamwita kuwa mchungaji wa Injili yake. Kama kiongozi wa kanisa hatimaye, Yakobo aliuwawa kwa kukatwa kichwa mjini Yerusalemu. Afisa wa Kirumi aliyemlinda Yakobo alishangaa sana jinsi Yakobo alivyolinda imani yake siku kesi yake iliposomwa. Baadaye afisa huyo alimsogelea Yakobo katika eneo la mauti. Nafsi yake ilipomsuta, alijitoa hatiani mbele ya hakimu kwa kumkubali Yesu Kristo kama kiongozi wa maisha yake; halafu akapiga magoti pembeni kwa Yakobo, ili na yeye akatwe kichwa kama mfuasi wa Yesu Kristo.
Bartholomayo, ambaye pia alijulikana kama Nathanali, alikuwa mmisionari huko Asia. Alimshuhudia Yesu mfalme wa wafalme katika Uturuki ya leo.
Bartholomayo aliteswa kwa sababu ya mahubiri yake huko Armenia, ambako inasemekana aliuwawa kwa kuchapwa bakora mbele ya halaiki ya watu iliyomdhihaki.
Andrea alisulubiwa katika msalaba wa X huko Patras nchini Ugiriki. Baada ya kuchapwa bakora kinyama na walinzi saba, alifungwa mwili mzima kwenye msalaba ili ateseke zaidi. Wafuasi wake waliokuwepo katika eneo la tukio waliripoti ya kuwa, alipokuwa akipelekwa msalabani, Andrea aliusalimia msalaba huo kwa maneno yafuatayo: "Nimekuwa nikitamani sana na nimekuwa nikiitegemea sana saa hii ya furaha. Msalaba uliwekwa wakfu na Mwenyezi Mungu baada ya mwili wa Yesu Kristo kuning’inizwa juu yake." Aliendelea kuwahubiria maadui zake kwa siku mbili zaidi, akiwa msalabani, mpaka akaishiwa na nguvu na kuaga dunia.
Tomaso alichomwa mkuki nchini India katika mojawapo ya safari zake za kimisionari akiwa na lengo la kuanzisha kanisa la Yesu Kristo katika bara la India.
Mathiya alichaguliwa na mitume kuchukua nafasi ya Yuda Iskarioti, baada ya kifo cha Yuda katika dimbwi la damu nchini India. Taarifa kuhusiana na maisha na kifo cha Mathiya zinachanganya na hazijulikani sawasawa. Lakini ipo imani kwamba Mathiya alipigwa mawe na Wayahudi huko Yerusalemu, kisha akauwawa kwa kukatwa kichwa.
Yuda Tadei, ndugu yake na Yesu, aliuwawa kwa mishale alipokataa kukana imani yake juu ya Yesu Kristo.
Mitume walikuwa na imani kubwa kwa sababu walishuhudia ufufuo wa Yesu Kristo, na miujiza mingine. Biblia ni kiwanda cha imani. Tunapaswa kuiamini Biblia kama mitume walivyomwamini Yesu Kristo, kwa sababu Biblia iliandikwa na mitume.
”
”
Enock Maregesi
“
An American businessman took a vacation to a small coastal Mexican village on doctor’s orders. Unable to sleep after an urgent phone call from the office the first morning, he walked out to the pier to clear his head. A small boat with just one fisherman had docked, and inside the boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish.
“How long did it take you to catch them?” the American asked.
“Only a little while,” the Mexican replied in surprisingly good English.
“Why don’t you stay out longer and catch more fish?” the American then asked.
“I have enough to support my family and give a few to friends,” the Mexican said as he unloaded them into a basket.
“But… What do you do with the rest of your time?”
The Mexican looked up and smiled. “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Julia, and stroll into the village each evening, where I sip wine and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life, señor.”
The American laughed and stood tall. “Sir, I’m a Harvard M.B.A. and can help you. You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. In no time, you could buy several boats with the increased haul. Eventually, you would have a fleet of fishing boats.”
He continued, “Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you would sell directly to the consumers, eventually opening your own cannery. You would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village, of course, and move to Mexico City, then to Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you could run your expanded enterprise with proper management.
The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, señor, how long will all this take?”
To which the American replied, “15-20 years, 25 tops.”
“But what then, señor?”
The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions.”
“Millions señor? Then what?"
“Then you would retire and move to a small coastal fishing village, where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take a siesta with your wife, and stroll in to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.
”
”
Tim FERRIS
“
Making the movie” is the term that a venture capitalist friend applies to the process of building a start-up. In my friend’s tech-company-as-movie analogy, the VCs are the producers and the CEO is the leading man. If possible, you try to get a star who looks like Mark Zuckerberg—young, preferably a college dropout, with maybe a touch of Asperger’s. You write a script—the “corporate narrative.” You have the origin myth, the eureka moment, and the hero’s journey, with obstacles to overcome, dragons to slay, markets to disrupt and transform. You invest millions to build the company—like shooting the movie—and then millions more to promote it and acquire customers. “By the time you get to the IPO, I want to see people lined up around the block waiting to get into the theater on opening night. That’s what the first day of trading is like. It’s the opening weekend for the film. If you do things right, you put asses in the seats, and you cash out.
”
”
Dan Lyons (Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble)
“
please don’t ever trade an IPO using market orders.
”
”
Matthew R. Kratter (A Beginner's Guide to the Stock Market)
“
As the next page loaded with another set of 25 emails, his eyes were drawn to the bottom of the screen, where for the first time previously-read messages stood out beneath the bold-type unread ones. There was something powerfully sentimental, almost tangible, about the realization that his dad had sat before a computer somewhere ten years earlier and had clicked on these same messages. The most recent one, received just hours before his parents’ death, was from his mom with the subject line, “re: Li’l Ryan’s Bday”. With a lump developing in his throat, he clicked on the message. His mom had written: “That’s something dads should talk to their sons about ;)” Hmm. Didn’t make sense without context. Below the end of the message he found the option to “show quoted text,” which he clicked on to reveal the entire exchange in reverse chronological order. She had been responding to his dad’s message: “I’m sure he’ll get it. I like the idea, but you better be prepared to have a discussion about the birds and bees. You know how his mind works. He’ll want to know how that baby got in there.” Ryan’s palms grew sweaty as he began to infer what was coming next. Not entirely sure he wanted to continue, but certain he couldn’t stop, he scrolled to the end. The thread had started with his mother’s message, “I’m already showing big-time. Sweaters only get so baggy, and it’s going to be warming up soon. I think tonight would be the perfect time to tell Ryan. I wrapped up a T-shirt for him in one of his presents that says ‘Big Brother’ on it. A birthday surprise! You think he’ll get it?” Having trouble taking in a deep breath, he rose to a stand and slowly backed away from his computer. It wasn’t his nature to ask fate “Why?” or to dwell on whether or not something was “fair.” But this was utterly overwhelming – a knife wound on top of an old scar that had never sufficiently healed. ~~~ Corbett Hermanson peered around the edge of Bradford’s half-open door and knocked gently on the frame. Bradford was sitting at his desk, leafing through a thick binder. He had to have heard the knock, Corbett thought, peeking in, but his attention to the material in the binder remained unbroken. Now regretting his timid first knock, Corbett anxiously debated whether he should knock again, which could be perceived as rude, or try something else to get Bradford’s attention. Ultimately he decided to clear his throat loudly, while standing more prominently in the doorway. Still, Bradford kept his nose buried in the files in front of him. Finally, Corbett knocked more confidently on the door itself. “What!” Bradford demanded. “If you’ve got something to say, just say it!” “Sorry, sir. Wasn’t sure you heard me,” Corbett said, with a nervous chuckle. “Do you think I’m deaf and blind?” Bradford sneered. “Just get on with it already.” “Well sir, I’m sure you recall our conversation a few days back about the potential unauthorized user in our system? It turns out...” “Close the door!” Bradford whispered emphatically, waving his arms wildly for Corbett to stop talking and come all the way into his office. “Sorry, sir,” Corbett said, his cheeks glowing an orange-red hue to match his hair. After self-consciously closing the door behind him, he picked up where he’d left off. “It turns out, he’s quite good at keeping himself hidden. I was right about his not being in Indiana, but behind that location, his IP address bounces
”
”
Dan Koontz (The I.P.O.)
“
CivTech - Civilisational Technologies (Trademark Filed 22/06/2023 40202313610P) IPOS
”
”
Elias Tan JS
“
The lack of much outside investment allowed Gates and Allen to hold the vast majority of their company’s stock through the mideighties. Jobs, while his net worth had climbed into a significant fortune with Apple’s rise, didn’t own enough to control his destiny and was fired. It was a cruel irony: For all his counterculture spirit and brilliance, he suffered the mercenary’s fate, left with money but no kingdom. Gates, however, remained reluctant to go public even ten years after Microsoft’s founding. Eventually, due to the number of Microsoft employees who owned shares, and U.S. securities laws obligating any company with more than 500 shareholders to be registered, which Microsoft expected to soon pass, Gates agreed to list his shares. But as a final symbol of resistance, he did try to fly coach during the IPO roadshow—one last ode to parsimony—until his underwriters insisted otherwise.
”
”
Bhu Srinivasan (Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism)
“
At the same time, many of the pioneering venture capitalists were not moneymen but graduates of the semiconductor industry. One of the eight men who had formed Fairchild Semiconductor, Eugene Kleiner, would found the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins in 1972, not coincidentally the year after the Intel IPO. In the same year, Don Valentine, a former Fairchild sales executive, founded Sequoia Capital. Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia would become as intrinsic to Silicon Valley as the entrepreneurs themselves—the equivalent of the grand Hollywood studios, with the entrepreneurs analogous to actors, directors, and producers. Over the next forty-five years, several of America’s most valuable corporations, including three of the top four, would be funded early on by Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia or both. This birth of venture capital—a rebirth, really—was a return to the most American of roots, older than its founders’ democracy. The organizers of the Virginia Company had called upon “adventurers” to risk capital. A few years later, the Merchant Adventurers in London coffeehouses had agreed to finance the voyage of a large molasses ship known as the Mayflower. Three hundred fifty years later, an improved concept of venture capital was being applied to the next era of American discovery.
”
”
Bhu Srinivasan (Americana: A 400-Year History of American Capitalism)
“
the company seemed different after the IPO, less hungry, less energetic, less creative.
”
”
Scott Patterson (The Quants: How a New Breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and Nearly Destroyed It)
“
The valuations of private and public companies were soaring, and there seemed to be a consensus that the gold rush was beginning. Amid this infrastructure mania, Reliance Power launched an IPO in January 2008 that was oversubscribed seventy-two times! It made the company’s owner, Anil Ambani, the richest Indian. Despite having a power capacity of less than 1,000 megawatts at the time of the IPO, the company’s value was about $35 billion. Did this lead to a large number of IPOs for infrastructure businesses that investors lapped up hungrily? Does the sun rise in the east? Both private and public equity investors in the hyped-up story of Indian infrastructure forgot or chose to ignore some uncomfortable truths: Every infrastructure business is held hostage to the whims and fancies of the government; the government hates to be a paying customer—underpayment and late payment are the rule, not the exception; and even if the government behaves well, the returns on these projects are capped according to law. So why would we want to spend a single minute debating if any power business is worth investing in?
”
”
Pulak Prasad (What I Learned About Investing from Darwin)
“
You know I don’t like to interfere when you make a parenting decision…but this tough love is a little much.
”
”
Sana Takeda (The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night)
“
I was afraid that what came from me would be more powerful than your father’s kindness.
”
”
Sana Takeda (The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night)
“
Something good has been coming from you for a long time. You’ve just been slow to see it.
”
”
Sana Takeda (The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night)
“
What an adventure you are, Ipo.
”
”
Sana Takeda (The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night)
“
Where does the gate lead…that is inside me? Perhaps these children will tell me.
”
”
Sana Takeda (The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night)
“
Vision mission: What was the original market or technology insight that led you to create this company? Customers: Who do you envision buying this product or service? Who will use it? Problem statement: What’s the problem you think you can solve for your potential customers? Use cases: What are the specific ways people will use this product or service to solve their problem? Product/solution: Give a detailed explanation of the technology behind the solution—what does it do now, and what else is it capable of doing? Ecosystem: In many cases there are other companies involved in solving the problem or adding additional value. These companies form an ecosystem around the problem and solution. What are all the companies and where in the ecosystem are the control points where one company has leverage? Competition: Who else is trying to solve this problem—or, if no one else sees the problem yet, who might jump in to compete with you to solve the problem once you identify it? Business model: How will your product or service change business for your customers? Will it increase their return on investment or reduce costs in a significant way? Or does it allow them to do something that couldn’t have been done with prior technology, creating huge value? Sales and go-to-market: Enterprise companies should articulate how the product or solution will make its way to the market. Through a sales force? Through distribution partners? Both? For a consumer company, how will users find out about your solution? From app stores? Search? Viral adoption? Growth hacking techniques? Advertising? PR? Organization: How is the company organized? Who are the major influencers on the company? How are decisions made? What kind of culture will work? Funding strategy: What’s the next funding event? A private financing? An IPO? How much runway does the company have before it needs more money and what kind of funding is in place to execute against the category strategy?
”
”
Al Ramadan (Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets)
“
And so here’s the VC conundrum: whether to focus on early-stage investments, where the risks are higher, the potential returns larger, but the fund size—and thus fee income—is smaller, or on later-stage deals where the risks are lower, the fees fatter, but the opportunities for tenfold returns are much rarer.
”
”
Jeffrey Bussgang (Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms)
“
If you’re going to fail, fail quick and cheap.’ There’s no stigma in failing that way.
”
”
Jeffrey Bussgang (Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms)
“
There is another unique aspect to thrift conversions. Unlike many IPOs, in which insiders who bought at very low prices sell some of their shares at the time of the offering, in a thrift conversion insiders virtually always buy shares alongside the public and at the same price.
”
”
Seth A. Klarman (Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor)
“
Kase weaved his fingers into my hair, tugging it so I was looking up. “Miss you, ipo.” I melted into him. “I miss you, too.
”
”
Layla Frost (Best Kase Scenario (Hyde, #2))
“
I kissed him again before pulling away. “I’m really happy,” I whispered. “I’m glad,” he whispered back. “You make me happy.” His face softened. “Ipo.” “I’ve gotta get going.” His smile turned playful. “Then hold on tight.” Shifting me around to his back, he held me under my legs as he ran through the building and out the door. I laughed the whole time.
”
”
Layla Frost (Best Kase Scenario (Hyde, #2))
“
You’re my daughter. You should be less scared of unfamiliar things.
”
”
Sana Takeda (The Night Eaters, Vol. 1: She Eats the Night)
“
Finally, most of the high returns on IPOs are captured by members of an
”
”
Benjamin Graham (The Intelligent Investor)
“
Dropbox, for example, employed 2,000+ full-time highly paid designers, engineers, and marketers, doubling or tripling the employee base each year leading up to the 2018 IPO.
”
”
Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
“
This is the Rocketship Growth Rate—the precise pace at which a startup must grow to break out. How do you calculate this rate of growth? First, by setting a goal of exceeding a billion dollars of valuation—thus being in a position to achieve an IPO—and working backward. Hitting a $1 billion valuation generally requires at least $100 million in top-line recurring revenue annually, based on the rough market multiple of 10x revenue. You’d want to hit that in 7–10 years, to sustain the engagement of the key employees and also reward investors who often work in decade-long time cycles. These two goals—revenue and time—work together to create an overall constraint. Neeraj Agarwal, a venture capitalist and investor in B2B companies, first calculated this growth rate by arguing that SaaS companies in particular need to follow a precise path to reach these numbers:64 Establish great product-market fit Get to $2 million in ARR (annual recurring revenue) Triple to $6 million in ARR Triple to $18 million Double to $36 million Double to $72 million Double to $144 million SaaS companies like Marketo, Netsuite, Workday, Salesforce, Zendesk, and others have all roughly followed this curve. And the rough timing makes sense. The first phase, in which the team initially gets to product/market fit, takes 1–3 years. Add on the time to reach the rest of the growth milestones, and the entire process might take 6–9 years. Of course, after year 10, the company might still be growing quickly, though it’s more common for it to be growing 50 percent annualized rather than doubling. The argument is that products with network effects both can see higher growth rates as they tap into the various network forces I’ve discussed, and can compound these growth rates for a longer period of time—and looking at the data, I think that’s generally true.
”
”
Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
“
Anti-Network Effects Hit the Google+ Launch A charismatic executive from one of the most powerful technology companies in the world introduces a new product at a conference. This time, it’s June 2011 at the Web 2.0 Summit, where Google vice president Vic Gundotra describes the future of social networking and launches Google+. This was Google’s ambitious strategy to counteract Facebook, which was nearing their IPO. To give their new networked product a leg up, as many companies do, it led with aggressive upsells from their core product. The Google.com homepage linked to Google+, and they also integrated it widely within YouTube, Photos, and the rest of the product ecosystem. This generated huge initial numbers—within months, the company announced it had signed up more than 90 million users. While this might superficially look like a large user base, it actually consisted of many weak networks that weren’t engaged, because most new users showed up and tried out the product as they read about it in the press, rather than hearing from their friends. The high churn in the product was covered up by the incredible fire hose of traffic that the rest of Google’s network generated. Even though it wasn’t working, the numbers kept going up. When unengaged users interact with a networked product that hasn’t yet gelled into a stable, atomic network, then they don’t end up pulling other users into the product. In a Wall Street Journal article by Amir Efrati, Google+ was described as a ghost town even while the executives touted large top-line numbers: To hear Google Inc. Chief Executive Larry Page tell it, Google+ has become a robust competitor in the social networking space, with 90 million users registering since its June launch. But those numbers mask what’s really going on at Google+. It turns out Google+ is a virtual ghost town compared with the site of rival Facebook Inc., which is preparing for a massive initial public offering. New data from research firm comScore Inc. shows that Google+ users are signing up—but then not doing much there. Visitors using personal computers spent an average of about three minutes a month on Google+ between September and January, versus six to seven hours on Facebook each month over the same period, according to comScore, which didn’t have data on mobile usage.86 The fate of Google+ was sealed in their go-to-market strategy. By launching big rather than focusing on small, atomic networks that could grow on their own, the teams fell victim to big vanity metrics. At its peak, Google+ claimed to have 300 million active users—by the top-line metrics, it was on its way to success. But network effects rely on the quality of the growth and not just its quantity
”
”
Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
“
One thing Tesla elected not to do when preparing for public ownership, which would have ramifications years later, was introduce a dual-class stock system. This was what allowed Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google (or Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook two years later) to keep control of their company, even as they held a small fraction of its total stock. It’s unclear why Tesla’s IPO paperwork, which it filed in January 2010, contained no such provision
”
”
Tim Higgins (Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century)
“
This is the Rocketship Growth Rate—the precise pace at which a startup must grow to break out. How do you calculate this rate of growth? First, by setting a goal of exceeding a billion dollars of valuation—thus being in a position to achieve an IPO—and working backward.
”
”
Andrew Chen (The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects)
“
Wall Street’s cynical investment bankers systematically underpriced initial public offerings of stock, or IPOs, enabling the shares to soar by as much as 697% on their first day of trading. That, in turn, made investors desperate to get in on the ground floor of the next IPO. It’s no coincidence that the official disclosure document of an IPO is called a “prospectus,” from the Latin term for “looking forward.
”
”
Jason Zweig (Your Money and Your Brain)
“
Dzień na wschodzie Polski Ależ to był długi dzień. Czwartek, 16 czerwca. Wstałem o szóstej rano, wypiłem kawę, wsiadłem do auta i pojechałem jakieś sto pięćdziesiąt kilometrów na wschód do więzienia w miejscowości Uherce blisko ukraińskiej granicy. Jeżdżę tam co jakiś czas, by rozmawiać z więźniami zamkniętymi na specjalnym oddziale dla uzależnionych od alkoholu i narkotyków. Terapeuci twierdzą, że wizyty ludzi z zewnątrz pomagają. No więc jeżdżę tak raz na kilka miesięcy i po prostu z nimi rozmawiam. Sam kiedyś, bardzo dawno, siedziałem w więzieniu i to mi ułatwia sprawę, gdy staję naprzeciwko trzydziestu ponurych, wytatuowanych facetów, których podstawową cechą jest brak zaufania. Staję i po prostu mówię o życiu, o tym, jak sam byłem więźniem, o swoich przygodach z alkoholem, o tych wszystkich rzeczach, które mogą im być bliskie. Czasami włączam projektor i pokazuję im zdjęcia ze swoich podróży. Wybieram miejsca piękne i puste: Mongolia, Syberia, Daleki Wschód. Patrzą w półmroku na ekran, na nieskończoność stepu, na bezmiar Ałtaju i wyobrażam sobie, że ich dusze doznają czegoś na kształt oczyszczenia, czegoś na podobieństwo tęsknoty i na tę krótką chwilę opuszczają ciasną, gorącą i nieco smrodliwą salę. Pamiętam dobrze, że gdy sam byłem w więzieniu, to moim największym skarbem była widokówka z jesiennymi górami. Mogłem się w nią wpatrywać godzinami. Była jak okno. Jesienne góry były tymi samymi górami, które i dziś otaczają więzienie, do którego przyjeżdżam. Takie ironiczne przygody gotuje nam los. Dwie godziny później pojechałem dwieście kilometrów na północ. W miasteczku Krasnystaw miałem rozmawiać z kolegą o Stanisławie Bojarczuku. Bojarczuk żył lat osiemdziesiąt sześć i nigdy nie opuścił swojej rodzinnej wsi. W dzieciństwie zaledwie przez kilka miesięcy chodził do szkoły. Nauczył się czytać i pisać, ale nie do końca przyswoił sobie znajomość poprawnej ortografii i gramatyki. Poza tym wiódł życie biednego rolnika. Można nawet rzec, że jego bieda częstokroć przypominała nędzę. Zostawił po sobie około tysiąca sonetów. Tak: klasycznych w formie, niezwykle wysublimowanych, poetycko kunsztownych, jak tylko sonet być może. Spisanych częstokroć na skrawkach papieru, na marginesach gazet, na czymkolwiek. Ten wiejski samouk użył do opisu swojego świata tej najtrudniejszej poetycko formy. Czytał w przekładzie Dantego i Petrarkę. Pasąc swoje dwie chude krowy, często doświadczając głodu, wchodził w dialog z dziedzictwem europejskiej kultury. Książki pożyczała mu miejscowa elita. Pod koniec życia, już za czasów komunizmu, korzystał z biblioteki. O tym rozmawialiśmy z kolegą do mikrofonu w miasteczku Krasnystaw, do którego Bojarczuk chadzał ze swojej wsi na niedzielne msze święte. A ja sam miałem w pamięci swoje chłopskie pochodzenie oraz fragmentaryczną edukację. A potem, o zmierzchu, pojechałem jakieś czterdzieści kilometrów na zachód do wsi Gardzienice, gdzie Włodzimierz Staniewski prowadzi swój teatr. Na zapadłej prowincji, pośród łąk i pastwisk, Staniewski próbuje tchnąć nowe życie w Eurypidesa. Tego wieczoru pokazywali akurat Ifigenię w Taurydzie. Półgodzinny spektakl był esencją teatralnej energii. Ruch, taniec, dźwięk, śpiew i słowo stapiały się w materię elementarną, w pierwotną siłę, która porywała ciała i aktorów, i siedzących w kręgu widzów. Jakby jednych i drugich pochłaniał płomień rodzący się gdzieś w głębi ciał, w głębi biologii. Gdy już się skończyło i wszyscy poszli, nie miałem sił, by się podnieść. Po tym jednym dniu, który o szóstej rano zaczął się od zwykłej kawy.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Ben: “If you need me, I will come home.” Felicia: “No. Get the IPO done. There is no tomorrow for you and the company. I’ll be fine.
”
”
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
“
Stoicy nie podpowiadają ani ile tych celów wybrać, ani też jakie one mają być. Mówią jedynie, że powinno ich być więcej niż jeden, że powinny być dobrze przemyślane, a z każdej minuty musimy się umieć przed sobą rozliczyć. Ważne jest, by zawsze wiedzieć, na co nasz czas poświęcamy, by kontrolować co, kiedy i po co robimy. To my decydujemy o treści każdej chwili.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, observed that an entrepreneur is someone who will jump off a cliff and assemble an airplane on the way down.
”
”
Jeffrey Bussgang (Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms)
“
Anzia popote pale ulipo kwa chochote ulichonacho,Ipo siku utakuwa mtu fulan uliyetaman kuwa kwa miaka mingi
”
”
Chrisper Malamsha
“
In 2008, Kalin was invited to lecture the Masters of the Universe at Davos. In April 2015, Etsy debuted an IPO; it was only the second Brooklyn company to go public.
”
”
Kay S. Hymowitz (The New Brooklyn: What It Takes to Bring a City Back)
“
Healtheon was worth whatever investors felt like paying for it, and that depended largely on public opinion. Healtheon was running for president. The IPO was election day.
”
”
Michael Lewis (The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story)
“
Persson did not create Minecraft because he wanted to create a billion-dollar company; he loved video games and kept his day job while developing it. When the game soared in popularity, he started a company, Mojang, with some of the profits, but kept it small, with just 12 employees. Even with zero dollars spent on marketing and no user instructions, Minecraft grew exponentially, flying past the 100 million registered user mark in 2014 based largely on word of mouth.2 Players shared user-generated extras like modifications (“mods”) and custom maps with each other, and the game caught on not only with children but their parents and even educators. Still, Persson avoided the valuation game, refusing an investment offer from former Facebook president Sean Parker. Finally, he and his co-founders sold Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, a fortune built on one man’s focus on creating something that people loved.3 On the other end of the spectrum is Zynga, one of the fastest startups ever to reach a $1 billion valuation.4 The social game developer had its first hit in 2009 with FarmVille. Next came Zynga’s partnership with Facebook that turned into a growth engine. The company began trading on the NASDAQ in December 2011 and had 253 million active users per month as late as the first quarter of 2013.5 Then the relationship with Facebook ended and the wheels started coming off. Flush with IPO cash, Zynga started exhibiting all the symptoms of ego-driven, grow-at-any-cost syndrome. They moved into a $228 million headquarters in San Francisco. They began hastily acquiring companies like NaturalMotion, Newtoy, and Area/Code. They infuriated customers by launching new games without sufficient testing and filling them with scripts that signed players up for unwanted subscriptions and services. When customer outrage went viral, instead of focusing on building better products, Zynga hired a behavioral psychologist to try to trick customers into loving its games.6 In a 2009 speech at Startup@Berkeley, CEO Mark Pincus said, “I funded [Zynga] myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to just get revenues right away. I mean, we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this Zwinky toolbar, which . . . I downloaded it once — I couldn’t get rid of it. We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business.”7 By the spring of 2016, Zynga had laid off about 18 percent of its workforce and its share price had declined from $14.50 in 2012 to about $2.50.
”
”
Brian de Haaff (Lovability: How to Build a Business That People Love and Be Happy Doing It)
“
Do you have time for a ride?” His face softened, his relief evident. I hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until I felt his muscles loosen. “Whenever you want,” he said. “It’s yours.” Grabbing his hand, I pulled him up the path to the house. I looked over my shoulder, smiling. “I wasn’t talking about the car.” “Answer’s still the same, ipo.
”
”
Layla Frost (Best Kase Scenario (Hyde, #2))
“
I never built that contingency plan. Through the seemingly impossible Loudcloud series C and IPO processes, I learned one important lesson: Startup CEOs should not play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.
”
”
Ben Horowitz (The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers)
“
With a coterie of unpleasant residents doing mischief with travelers.” “What’s a coterie?” “A somewhat large group.” “How large?” “Some say an army,” said Ipos. “But a minor one.” “Why didn’t you say so? It sounds completely reasonable.” “Good.” “No, it doesn’t. I was being sarcastic.” Merihim frowned.
”
”
Richard Kadrey (The Kill Society (Sandman Slim, #9))
“
Whether you’re a tiny start-up seeking angel money, a growing company going for a B round, or an IPO candidate, a POV will be the best investor relations tool you’ll ever have.
”
”
Al Ramadan (Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets)
“
Dunia hii ipo mahali tusipodhani ipo!
”
”
Enock Maregesi
“
Nike, Microsoft Amazon and similar companies went public relatively early in their growth cycles. As a result, public investors had the opportunity to participate in 95 to 99% of their overall price appreciation. Founders, early employees and VCs took all the risk. Most of the reward was left for grabbing – anyone could’ve bought those stocks on the secondary markets. As the Federal Reserve prints more money and interest rates remain low, an increasing percentage of capital is flowing into risky asset classes like venture capital and “angel investing.” This capital has chased up valuations in the pipeline preceding IPOs, making the IPOs feel more like the end of the journey, not the beginning. Thus,
”
”
Ivaylo Ivanov (The Next Apple: How To Own The Best Performing Stocks In Any Given Year)
“
HDFC Bank was the first of the private lenders to go public— even before it completed a full year. 'It was a mistake,' Deepak told me. The RBI required the new banks to go public within a year but all other lenders went back to the regulator and got extensions. 'We didn't ask for it. We were too naive,' Deepak said. 'Everybody took time as they wanted to get a premium. We sold at par, ₹10. But I have no regrets.' Deepak pushed for a par issue as the bank had nothing to show. And the disaster of parent HDFC's listing was still haunting him, though that had happened a decade and a half ago. In 1978, India's capital market was in a different shape and mortgage was a new product, not understood by many. HDFC put the photograph of its first borrower on the cover of its balance sheet, a D. B. Remedios from Thane, who took a loan of ₹35,000 to build his house. The public issue of HDFC bombed. In an initial public offering (IPO) of ₹10 crore, the face value of one share was ₹100. ICICI, IFC (Washington) and the Aga Khan Fund took 5% stakes each in the mortgage lender and the balance 85% equity was offered to the public, but there were few takers. The stock quoted at a steep discount on listing. For the bank, Deepak did not want to take any chance. So portions of the issue were reserved for the shareholders and employees of HDFC as well as the bank's employees. HDFC decided to own close to a 26% stake in the bank and NatWest 20%. Satpal was offered about 5% and the public 25%. The size of the public issue was ₹50 crore. 'We didn't know whether it would succeed. Our experience with HDFC had been a disaster,' Deepak said. But Deepak had grossly underestimated investors' appetite for the new bank. The issue, which opened on 14 March 1995, was subscribed a record fifty-five times. The stock was listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (now known as BSE Ltd) on 26 May that year at ₹39.95, almost at a 300% premium.
”
”
Tamal Bandopadhyaya (A Bank for the Buck)
“
A lot of us asked why we weren't pricing it at a premium. We could have got a premium but Deepak said, "leave money on the table for investors. They will appreciate this in the long term." Today, when we have arguments with our promoters, one of the big lessons I learnt from our float is to price an IPO cheap,' Luis said. 'Should we really scalp the shareholders? This is a start-up company. On what basis are we putting valuations? Today they will put a valuation even on a start-up idea,' Satwalekar was blunt in his assessment.
”
”
Tamal Bandopadhyaya (A Bank for the Buck)
“
it makes sense to be ready should an attractive opportunity suddenly appear. This may manifest in the form of the IPO market window opening, or an unexpected approach by a major trade competitor.
”
”
Bill Ferris (Inside Private Equity: Thrills, spills and lessons by the author of Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained)
“
initial public offering (IPO)
”
”
Open University (Equity finance)
“
Groupon is a study of the hazards of pursuing scale and valuation at all costs. In 2010, Forbes called it the “fastest growing company ever” after its founders raised $135 million in funding, giving Groupon a valuation of more than $1 billion after just 17 months.5 The company turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google and went public in 2011 with one of the biggest IPOs since Google’s in 2004.6 It was one of the original unicorns. However, the business model had serious problems. Groupon sometimes sold so many Daily Deals that participating businesses were overwhelmed . . . even crippled. Other businesses accused Groupon of strong-arming them to sign up for Daily Deals. Customers started to view the group discount (the company’s bread and butter) as a sign that a participating business was desperate. Businesses stopped signing up. Journalists suggested that Groupon was prioritizing customer acquisition over retention — growth over value — and that it had gone public before it had a solid, proven business model.7 Groupon is still a player, with just over $3 billion in annual revenue in 2015. But its stock has fallen from $26 a share to about $4 today, and it has withdrawn from many international markets. Also revealing is that the company is suing IBM for patent infringement, something that will not create customer value.8 Many promising startups have paid the price for rushing to scale. We can see clues to potential future failures in the recent “down rounds” (stock purchases priced at a lower valuation than those of previous investors) hitting companies like Foursquare, Gilt Group, Jet, Jawbone, and Technorati. In their rush to build scale, executives and founders search for shortcuts to sustainable, long-term revenue growth.
”
”
Brian de Haaff (Lovability: How to Build a Business That People Love and Be Happy Doing It)
“
Some of the most noted angel investors are Alexis Ohanian (founder of Reddit), Marc Benioff (founder of Salesforce) and Max Levchin (founder of Paypal, Slide and Affirm) who on occasion invest in early stage and growth rounds as well. If the core product of the business begins to gain market share, and it seems the company has a lasting opportunity to scale and become an emerging leader, investors like First Round Capital and 500 Startups step in at the seed or Series A round. Growth equity firms like Stripes Group, General Atlantic and Insight Venture Partners typically come in at the Series C or D stage when the business becomes the number one or two player in the industry and is ripe for an IPO or strategic acquisition.
”
”
Bradley Miles (#BreakIntoVC: How to Break Into Venture Capital And Think Like an Investor Whether You're a Student, Entrepreneur or Working Professional (Venture Capital Guidebook Book 1))
“
No, no, no." The Rabbi raised his hands. "The loan is free. Just return the eighteen hundred after the IPO. If you want to give me anything more, then you decide however to repay me. Give to tzedakah--a gift to charity. Give to Bialystok Center. Or give nothing. This is an investment. Your are investing in Veritech. And I am investing in you.
”
”
Allegra Goodman (The Cookbook Collector)
“
Arlington Heights software firm files for $115 mil. IPO 68 words Paylocity, a payroll and human resources software firm, has filed to make a $115 million initial public stock offering. The Arlington Heights company provides cloud-based payroll and HR management software to about 6,850 businesses with up to 1,000 employees. It employs nearly 850 people. The company, founded in 1997, was renamed Paylocity in 2005. The company wants to list shares on the Nasdaq market under the symbol “PCTY.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Alibaba took its IPO to investors in a roadshow, having priced the offering at between $60 and $66 a share. This could value the Chinese e-commerce firm at around $160 billion when it lists in New York, which is close to Amazon’s current market valuation. With reports that its order book is already full, Alibaba is likely to raise $20 billion or more on its stockmarket debut, and possibly be the most lucrative IPO ever.
”
”
Anonymous
“
Make a difference,” she said. “Love. Be loved. And be happy.”
”
”
Dan Koontz (The I.P.O.)
“
This impression or belief is blindly wrong. I am not trying to detest every IPO. But the fact is, considerable number of companies hitting the market with new share have a hidden agenda of snatching maximum possible amount of money from the general public.
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
That was what happened. A lady by the name Rupal Panchal had opened more than 5,000 demat accounts from the same address and played during the IPO issues of companies like YES bank and IDFC. She
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
At the end of third quarter of calendar year 2006, two-third of companies that came out with IPO that year traded below their issue price. Some
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
Some companies made their IPO investor loose more than 60 percent of their original money. Many
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
Many of those IPOs hit the market when the trend was upward and mood positive. So they could cheerfully raise the money.
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
After one year by the end of May, 2007 Vijay Mallya of Kingfisher airlines announced to acquire 26 percent stake in Deccan aviation. The stock price slowly inched back to Rs 145, almost the IPO price.
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
It is natural for the market to go through bull run as well as bear run. During bullish phase, many unknown companies would come out with IPO. Sometimes they would gain anywhere between 20 percent to 100 percent on the very day of listing. Demand
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
Somewhere in 2004 a company called SAH petroleum came with its IPO at Rs 35 each share. It’s market price was tarnished into half in two years since then. At the same time, it is interesting to note that SENSEX doubled during the same time frame. Anyone
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
Board constructed by people from the same family, major portion of the profit depleted as directors’ salary, profit suddenly raising the year before the public issue, no clear justification as to what the IPO money would be used for were indicators apparent in the offer document sufficient enough to alarm any alert investor.
”
”
Chellamuthu Kuppusamy (The Science of Stock Market Investment - Practical Guide to Intelligent Investors)
“
by 2005 to do an IPO. In November 2006, Info Edge became the first pure Indian dotcom to conduct a successful IPO. At the time it had revenues of T 84 crore and profits of T 13 crore. A year after its IPO, Info Edge is still growing at a crazy pace. In the year 2007-08, revenues stood at T 239 crore with post-tax profits of T 55 crore. The company’s current market capitalisation is $630 million (over T 2,500 crore).*
”
”
Rashmi Bansal (Stay Hungry Stay Foolish)
“
Money is nice, right?,” he confessed to me. “Money gives you good things, it gives you a power that you can go do other things with. But it’s not a meaning of a life in itself. Money is a motivator, but it’s not the motivator that I wake up in the morning thinking about, it’s not the motivator that I go home thinking about, it’s not the motivator that gets you an obituary.
”
”
Jeffrey Bussgang (Mastering the VC Game: A Venture Capital Insider Reveals How to Get from Start-up to IPO on Your Terms)