Bill Gurley

And then we'll dive into what's possible.

Yeah.

So we got megafunds, zombie unicorns, and then the capital markets.

So reasons that aren't well articulated, well understood, both the IPO and M&A markets have stalled over the past couple of years.

2021 was actually pretty good on both fronts, but things have stalled.

I think it's really important.

If you look at last year, 2024, the NASDAQ was up 30%.

and the window was closed.

That seems to be the general belief of everyone out there.

Never in my history of paying attention to the capital markets or being in venture capital, do you have a successful NASDAQ market and a closed window.

Yeah, it makes no sense.

That was what was correlated.

And so something else is happening.

I believe a part of it I've been very passionate about is the IPO discount that the banks force upon the market, especially the well-known high branded ones.

But other people point to the cost of going public too high.

Other people cost of it.

Going to the cost of being public too high.

And then, of course, we know money's everywhere.

So we'll come back to this in the second part.

But people don't have to go public, or at least the very successful companies don't have to go public.