True but no company has a vested interest in the democratization of investment. IPOs are purely about getting paydays for founders.

*and early investors. Mostly early investors in many cases.

crux of the problem is the SV model is completely broken and leads to these cycles. wish it were more about sustainable progression and not rapid half-baked innovation to achieve paydays for greedy founders/investors

Huh, they won't get pay day if no one use their products. And there are plenty of examples of failed products. If people have idea and execution capability for sustainable progression they can very well try outside the valley. It is not like companies don't start outside valley.

which is why the majority of the startups fail and then a lucky unicorn comes and funds the next cycle. look at how many poor ideas got massive investment on the bet of payout; so many blockchain companies and none solved a real world problem. lots of potential investment in things that could have greatly helped many more people in the world, but instead invested into a technology looking for a problem.

I agree that the vast majority of the blockchain companies were "technology looking for a problem," (or at least, technology looking for another problem besides money ledger) but blockchain really was (is) a pretty damn good technology. The most unfortunate part of it is that the only thing it may really stick for is DRM :-(

I guess it's not possible to fuel "hypergrowth" this way, but why not just issue debt? Let the market buy in to your growth with a healthy dividend and reduced risk.

This is misguided and myopic. There are many valid reasons for a company to go public besides “pay day to founders”, here are a few

1. Easier access to capital markets and liquidity in general 2. Marketing/publicity provided by equity research coverage 3. Legitimacy / transparency and trust building for customers (public filings, outsides can gauge health of business) 4. Thanks to number 3, companies have an easier time getting larger corporations as clients or partners

Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it bad

Yeah, they sure innovated with all that public money they got over...three years? What did the release in the last three years exactly?

Also, what "democratic access" did people get? The ability to buy at $80 a share and then eventually sell it at $30?

Does anyone really believe this kind of stuff anymore?

What is there to believe?

Capitalism is not a religion, there is no belief involved.

I'm referring to the parent comment, but pithy reply.