Stripe made the right move here. Going public is a huge move. You don't want to make a big decision like this because early employees couldn't have cashed out.

There are lots of other considerations that come along with an IPO and Stripe is addressing the core problem (early employee liquidity) with a targeted solution.

(And yes -- they would've been better off doing two years ago. But timing is hard, and that's not really relevant to their decision now, which is the best at the current time given the past.)