[siren2026]

Ben Felix got a great video on this subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOyFja87uyw

The point he makes is that companies go public when they think they can get the maximum our of their shares on the retail market. Which make sense I guess.

But the fact that the 3 of them are hitting the public market at the same time means they all came to the conclusion that now is the perfect time to unload those shares. Probably because they know there is a high chance of a big crash coming after.

I will not touch those IPOs with a 10 feet long pole. But unfortunately a lot of people are about to get burned.

My prediction is that this is what will be remembered as the last bit of exuberance before everything starts to unravel.

Books will be written about how insiders will be profiting millions by unloading those shares to the greatest fools and middle class america.

[JumpCrisscross]

> point he makes is that companies go public when they think they can get the maximum our of their shares on the retail market

I think this is what's going on right now. But there are a variety of reasons that can drive IPO timing. Need for cash and owners needing liquidity being chief among them.

I'd also say that post-Covid, retail has become a commanding section of the American equity markets in a way I don't think they've been in my lifetime. As a result, every IPO from now on will have to target retail.

[siren2026]

Both OpenAI and Anthropic were able to raise astronomical amount of cash on the private markets just weeks ago. I don't think that's what's driving them.

I really think what is driving this is the need for insiders, employees, early investors to be able to sell their stock at scale before the music stops.

And You can only do that through a full IPO. All those companies had private secondary transaction but none of them were big enough to transfer the Trillions of $ required for the insiders to unload their bags.

[JumpCrisscross]

> what is driving this is the need for insiders, employees, early investors to be able to sell their stock at scale before the music stops

How would you differentiate insiders needing to sell versus insiders needing to dump before a crash?

I remember when Uber and Airbnb and WeWork went public in quick succession. There were similar claims. WeWork never made it public. And Uber and Airbnb's IPO investors made of fantastically.

[siren2026]

> How would you differentiate insiders needing to sell versus insiders needing to dump before a crash?

To answer this, just ask yourself how many of the insiders would have bought the stock at current IPO's price? Most insiders would probably never touch those stocks at this price. I know a couple people at OpenAI and Anthropic that are very clearly selling everything they can as soon as they can.

This is all a carefully orchestrated PR game that is relying on retail to be the ultimate fool. I guess to some level every IPO is like that (A PR game to hype the company).

But never before had we 3 mega IPOs happening at almost the exact same time with so much money to unload on retails with dubious ways to force funds to gobble them.

Most IPOs end up negative after the first few quarters (at least compared to the SP500). When we are talking about a 20B$ company it matters less than 5T$ being suddenly fully unloaded on the public.

> And Uber and Airbnb's IPO investors made of fantastically.

Did they? https://www.alphaspread.com/comparison/nasdaq/abnb/vs/indx/g...

The only way they might have is by getting the shares at the actual IPO price, and even then it's around the same as the SP500 return since then.

[s1artibartfast]

Is it bad for insiders to want out? Is it bad for owners to sell when they think it is overpriced?

I think this is extremely common, if not necessary, part of a functioning market and price discovery. It happens with not just IPOs but also secondary offerings.

Some of this seems like dumb retail wanting to toughtlessly buy without consideration of risk.

[JumpCrisscross]

> couple people at OpenAI and Anthropic that are very clearly selling everything they can as soon as they can

If you are serious about this for Anthropic please drop me a line. (Not OpenAI.)

> never before had we 3 mega IPOs happening at almost the exact same time

Uber (May 2019), Airbnb (December 2020) and WeWork (scheduled 2019, SPAC 2021) were pretty closely bunched. And they were big for their time. Keep in mind that the money supply has expanded since then.

> Most IPOs end up negative after the first few quarters

Source?

[siren2026]

> Source?

There is an actual ETF tracking IPOs: https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/IPO/

[teaearlgraycold]

I’m also staying away. I need to not lose money more than I need to gain money.