Retail launches are always designed to let them cash out with big multiples no matter what the price does.

I remember buying something I thought was “early” for $5 a share and later we learned the real earlies got in for $0.25. I was able to sell somehow at a price of $12 in the mania after it launched, but of course it eventually bled out down to $0.25 and beyond because of the constant selling from the insiders. They were always in profit, what did they care?

he can probably do neither

- sponsors create a spac selling shares+warrants for, say, $10

- they have two years to merge with a company

- when the merger is sorted, shareholders can choose either (a) to get their money back + 3%, (b) to get their share in the resulting company and discard their warrant, or (c) to get their share and exercise their warrant to buy another share at some potentially good price

- the sponsors get 20% of the pre-warrant equity in the spac’s investment. I think they might have a long lock-out period before they can sell too

- if no merger happens, investors get back their money with interest.

So maybe I don’t understand what you mean, or maybe I don’t understand what a spac is, but isn’t it bad for the sponsors if the shareholders don’t like the merger? Maybe it’s more subtle and it is a lot worse than coming up with a good merger but still better than not doing the spac at all.

Are you excited by the fact that Mark Z doesn't suffer from this disease with Meta and is spending $25B/yr on a virtual reality platform that won't provide returns for many years, if at all?

Quarterly reporting (and the inevitable over-weighting of it) is there to PROTECT small-time investors.

Our current model of “must have quarter over quarter growth” is a good a check in theory but it’s too easy to cut corners in the short term instead of solving systemic, organizational problems which just kicks the can down the road.

Keeping companies private just limits who can own them and doesn't help.

The bar is too high and there are huge numbers of really decent companies that need some kind of liquidity.

We're just not set up for it. Maybe it's a matter of just bringing more attention to small caps, I don't know.

Or another vehicle.

There are just too many truly great value creating business out there whereupon it's very difficult for founders to get their accumulated value out of it. People have devoted their lives to doing some good thing, but it's pointless if it's hard to market the company. This absolutely has effects on the industry because it's literally not worth the devotion required to do so many things if there can be no upuside even a good scenario of making a decent company.

It leaves way too much money in the hands of bankers and speculators and not those to took the biggest risks, made it work and likely created surpluses for everyone.

Definitely we need a new model.

Direct listing is most logical and if done right, the company will get the most of actual benefit.

> During a 2020–2021 boom period for SPACs, they attracted prominent names such as Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Deutsche Bank, in addition to retired or semiretired senior executives.

Now, why retired or semi-retired senior exec who are most probably already swimming in money and have a certain age are even thinking about these investments instead of just spend the fortune they have and enjoy life? I guess I'll never be such an exec...

The problem is not many of them want to pay for it. $40 million in ARR after 13 years and $227 million in funding isn't great.