[mmcwilliams]

This seems to ignore the fact that millions of non-technical people did pay cash for a product: AOL. And in fact the AOL buyout of Time Warner coincided almost exactly with burst of the dot com boom.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the AOL buyout of Time Warner

To be clear, there is a world of difference between IPOs and LBOs. In the risk they create. And in the risk they signal.