[simon_]

I just read Ben Horowitz's new book, and he describes taking Loudcloud public as a Hail Mary because private markets were essentially too smart to give them any more money at a horrible time (while the original dotcom bubble was in the middle of bursting).

Clearly Box is in much better shape, but it's not too hard to imagine that maybe they are rolling the dice on an IPO during a super-hot market in response to feedback from private investors that they were going to have to raise a down (or otherwise disappointing) round.