Hacker News Reader

Comment by __natty__ | Hacker News Reader

As someone who does not understand how IPO works. So they do not need to show whole “big picture” of their revenue vs costs before going public? Wouldn’t build it trust to show they are healthy company worth investing besides speculation? (It must be naive question from)

View on HN

Yes they do. They have to file an S-1 with the SEC, which will be made public about a month before the IPO.

The S-1 has to include, among other things, three years of audited financial statements, plus interim statements (unaudited). It will cover both revenue and expenses, the latter breaking out things like cost of revenue, R&D, sales and marketing etc.

Based on the (unofficial but reported) IPO target date of late Sep to early Oct, the S-1 will have to be made public in a few weeks from now.

Yes, they have to file an S-1 with the SEC as part of the process. This lays out business operations in detail, including risks. For instance, here is the SpaceX S-1: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1181412/000162828026...

They do, but the accounting rules change based on context. They will file an S1 today outlining how they are rolling in profits then, come tax time, suddenly they are hemorrhaging money. Flesh-and-blood investors have lost all trust in financial filings. See SpaceX.

You think Elon Musk fans were reading the financials???

The financials were always bad. Everyone with half a brain avoided the IPO. Did you?

Exactly. The financial filings don't matter. Even the people that read them immediately dismiss them.

No, as i understand it: the underwriters are the banks that write out the shares and give a sort of guarantee. So they decide the price of the IPO.

Of course they do. The HN braintrust is mostly financially illiterate and sees conspiracies and fraud everywhere.

This is the biggest capital buildout on history. Saying money will be wasted is not insightful, it's obvious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com