> In an IPO, SEC rules typically restrict shareholders from selling shares until six months after the offering. A direct offering makes it much easier for employees and early investors to cash out as soon as the first day of trading. This can be a big help for investors in companies that have waited to go public, which many of the best-known tech companies have been doing for years Is it wrong to interpret this as ot…
It seems pretty obvious that we’re in a bubble, given the excessive valuations and obvious signs such as the incredible rise of WeWork and “me too” startup culture. But the nature of a bubble is that such things are normalised and rationalised. What’s particularly difficult about this bubble is that economic conditions have conspired to maintain it far longer that the .com boom, which has meant predictions of the burst have been premature.
I definitely think we’re in a better place than the late 90s, but it’s still a bubble. Perhaps such cyclic swings are inevitable; just wish we’d done more constructive and positive things than Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, Twitter, with this era of cheap money. Could have had more Teslas and SpaceXs.