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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

> In a world context where the largest companies are more likely to stay private than IPO

Which world is this?

From a Scottish Mortgage report: "companies are staying private for longer and until higher valuations".

    Amazon founded in 1994
    1997 listed at $400m
    Google founded in 1998 
    2004 listed at $23bn
    Spotify founded in 2006
    2018 listed at $27bn
    Airbnb founded in 2008
    2020 listed at $47bn
    Epic games founded in 1991
    2022 unlisted value $32bn
    Space Exploration founded in 2002
    2022 unlisted value $125bn
    ByteDance founded in 2012
    2022 unlisted value $360bn

The only unlisted business there that could be considered among “the largest” is ByteDance. But they have a whole China thing going on, so not very representative of US/European markets.

I doubt any competitor to the largest businesses in US//Europe that is actually putting up good audited numbers is staying private. Even Stripe has been trying to go public, but it doesn’t have the numbers for the owners to want to yet.

SpaceX hasn’t tried to go public , arguably being private has helped them ability to raise a lot of money from investors is key to their successes.

Their kind of product development [1] needs a long term thinking which public markets will not not support well

[1] ignore all the mars noise, just consider reusable i.e. cheap rockets and starlink

It’s never just about the company’s numbers, but the financial environment. When interest rates come down enough to tempt investors out of the money market, you’re likely to see a new wave of IPOs.

Agreed. OP is crossing some wires. More companies are staying private right now (not by choice). Not necessarily or only the “largest companies”

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