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Comment by marvin | Hacker News Reader

I have been thinking the same thing for some time now. Unfortunately, I wouldn't hold my breath. If they are able to stay private, they probably will. It's easier to build a business when you don't have to deal with the hassle and interference of public markets.

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What would that do to all the Stripes holding illiquid shares in a private company?

I'm not familiar with Stripe's situation, but there are non-public markets available for this kind of stock sale. You just can't buy from them unless you're already rich. I'd guess that long-term employees do have an amount of flexibility in that regard.

Unfortunately many companies have clauses in their options grants that prohibit employees from selling shares to any investor not approved by the company board (e.g. EquityZen).

Can you form a mutual fund/ETF that invests into those kind of companies via the non-public markets and then sell shares publicly for the fund?

Scottish Mortgage (SMT) in the UK does this and has a stake in Stripe (https://citywire.co.uk/investment-trust-insider/news/boost-f...)

This is already a thing, large investors like Fidelity do exactly this.

e.g. Fidelity has a significant investment in SpaceX through a handful of their mutual funds, which you can then purchase and basically invest in SpaceX indirectly.

Publicly traded organizations can have any kind of private investment. I wonder, though, if there is regulation around how much of the public org’s capital can be put in private stock purchases…

I think some VCs are already also offering shares via mutual funds.

I’ve seen companies doing buy backs to give people liquidity. In India, anyway. Check out Zerodha.

"In March, Stripe, which describes itself as “payments infrastructure for the internet,” became the most valuable private company in Silicon Valley, raising $600 million at a valuation of $95 billion. The Journal reported Stripe is considering going public later this year or early next year."

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