Bill Gurley

And you would think that'd be a positive based on all my previous talking about the wonderful nature of traditional company building.

Of course, I'm supportive of that.

But there is an underlying reality and they could perhaps exist forever, which I think leads to the zombie tag.

Let's come back to that.

Let me move on.

I want to get these market realities out there.

Okay, great.

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.