Uber's IPO caps an era of mediocrity and small thinking in Silicon Valley
cnbc.com
cnbc.com
Of course it includes braindead bleating about diversity in reference to a company whose service benefits minority customers the most.
If there's a problem of mediocrity and small thinking here, it's the author's.
Again, this is just one guy's opinion but it has been a hell of a spectacle. May we all find chairs when the music stops...
The whole thing is happening not because Uber needs to go public as a business, but that the people who bankrolled Uber needed an exit so that they could look like they were successful (smooth things out with the people who bankroll them.) Softbank took Saudi money to string it a long a few more months, but then Softbank needed an exit too.
Unlike Apple Computer, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Kodak, or many other great corporations, it was not at all about "let's get public funding so we can make a huge company and make public investors rich".
Thus it undermines the public markets themselves, the IPO process, etc. It undermines public confidence in capitalism. It makes a few people rich now at the cost of future prosperity.
Kudos to everyone involved...
It feels like if people share your views of the company, they have finally been empowered to do something about it.
Yet, even if Uber went to $10, early investors effectively got in at a vastly lower price and stand to make a huge gain at the expense of public investors as opposed to by "getting in early at something that becomes a great business."
Thus it becomes an example of "people using social institutions to take wealth away from other people;" or an abuse of privilege.
Most of the time the public corporation system is some combination of that. If people benefit from privilege, position and luck but they create something hugely beneficial then maybe it is OK. If on the other hand they use it as a platform to steal from "widows, orphans, retirees, etc." then it not OK.
It's hard to talk about these things because some very good things and some very bad things are closely conflated.
I had not taken in to the logical conclusion that by going public, they would essentially be poisoning the well for everyone coming after them. Thanks!
Why would this signal an I.P.O. drought? If anything it’s the opposite, easy money is no longer available in private markets so we might now return to normalcy.
What really drives IPOs is the demand. If Uber turns into an epic fail it will be that much harder for the next big IPO. It will draw in regulators, etc.
Ultimately one hand has to wash the other.