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Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

This is EXTREMELY unusual -- in fact, unheard of -- for a company that just consummated its IPO.

Historically, companies that IPO are in growth mode; they use the IPO to raise more money to fund more investment in growth opportunities.

Think of it this way: in an IPO (initial public offering), a typically young company offers newly issued shares to public-market investors in exchange for fresh money. The investors buy those newly-issued shares if they believe the company can put the money to good use, for example by investing in growth opportunities. If investors believe the company has no growth opportunities or is in retreat, an IPO is unlikely to be successful.

Yet here is a company that consummated its IPO only a month ago and now is firing a quarter of its employees!

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From what I understand of the last 15 years, IPOs are now for cashing out when you've manufactured a solid enough filing to convince normal people that you're worth what the 10 VCs who gave you money say you're worth.

No company IPOs if they don't absolutely have to. It's like conceding that you can't make enough profit privately to recoup your investment on any kind of reasonable timescale.

Right, in a certain sense it seems like they filed their IPO at just the right time.

In theory that can't be true. To IPO you don't need to convince "normal people" to IPO you need to convince institutional investors (those that run funds that are called on to fund retirement payouts, people who manage university endowments etc) on a road show that investing in your company will be a 'good thing' because the company is growing. The S-1 and prospectus should tell you all about the risks in clear detail and what is and is not known about the market. These people are not 'normal' people in that they analyze investment opportunities all the time. They usually ask detailed questions and want detailed answers. Usually a representative from the independent accounting firm that audited your financials is along to answer questions as well as the company's CFO to put the best possible spin on it.

These investors are not going to buy your initial stock and then turn around and dump it because that would kill the value of any stock. Instead they have to believe that they can buy your stock and hold it for 12 - 36 months and it will become more valuable so that if they chose to they could sell it into the market over enough months to not disrupt the price and make a return on the money they invested. They need that return because the people who pay them to manage the fund demand a certain standard of performance or they get fired.

If the goal was to just 'cash out' you have to convince all of these people that you're not really going to cash out in order for them to buy into your IPO. That is hard to do with dozens of new investors.

I'm pretty sure underwriting and IPO standards have nose-dived:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-great-american...

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