[austenallred]

Public stock prices are the last price someone was willing to buy that stock at.

Private stock prices are the last price someone was willing to buy that stock at.

It is slightly less simple, because you may give a discount for advice, but private stock prices are definitely reliant upon supply and demand. If one investor wants to set your valuation at $1B and another at $100m, you go with the one who offered a $1B valuation. There is occasionally a discount for advice/connections, but the mechanism that the highest bidder wins is generally the same. Private market stocks are by no means exempt from economics or supply and demand.

[gress]

I don't know if you are making a disingenuous argument or you just don't know about liquidity, or indeed the effects of sample size on estimating a changing value, but what you've said here has no relationship with reality.

[austenallred]

How does it not?