Fintech unicorn Kikoff's CEO sent this google doc to all employees this week saying that she doesn't want to IPO even though the business is doing well. Says that engineers need to "build more value" first. Not sure if her reasons make sense but would you work at a startup that actively didn't want to IPO?
You would much rather work at a company that is growing and able to stay private than a company trying to IPO as early as possible. Unstable growth or minor dips are typical, especially with volatility in the world right now, and going public makes you extremely, extremely exposed to minor performance variance. The last thing you want is leadership destroying long-term value in pursuit of quarterly targets but this is exactly what going public incentivizes.
It's a rare company that can train their public investor base to behave rationally and allow them to invest in future growth even at the expense of immediate quarterly performance.
Nothing wrong with this, it's not "work 80 hour weeks or get fired" or even particularly annoying LinkedIn-style hustleporn. It's a very realistic assessment of what it takes to go public - and a call to focus on customers.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 27.8 ms ] threadIt's a rare company that can train their public investor base to behave rationally and allow them to invest in future growth even at the expense of immediate quarterly performance.