The AirBNB listing showed that banks favor their friends and clients in an IPO, when the price surged well before the debut allowed us Little People to buy. A direct listing would be cool and I hope they pursue that.
However, Airbnb allocated a number of shares to its own hosts, and a lot of Little People were able to partake in that if they were on the ball.
Those investors being inclined to hold, did not sell, yielding a relatively small float that was massively outstripped by demand, causing the price to skyrocket.
Maybe some of those investors were friends of the bankers and cashed out but that would only be (a small) part of the story