Dan Kent

Some of the most exciting companies in the world are staying private longer.

By the time they IPO, a lot of the value might have already gone to founders, employees, venture funds, sovereign wealth funds, large institutions.

So retail investors kind of naturally wonder...

why can't I get in earlier?

And the question is pretty fair.

If more value creation is happening before the IPO, then public market investors are right to ask why they're showing up late to the party.

And I think we're going to go over this after the Berkshire call, kind of how to get access to these funds, or sorry, these opportunities before they go public.

Yeah, that's the key distinction because a lot of investors assume being earlier automatically means you have a better opportunity, but earlier can also mean less information, less liquidity, worse terms, much harder time figuring out what the investment is actually worth.

That doesn't mean private markets are always bad, but it does mean that investors kind of need to separate the excitement from the actual expected return because that is what we're trying to do here is earn returns on our money.

And I think that becomes even more important when the companies involved are tied to AI, where the stories are kind of huge, the valuations are aggressive, and the range of outcomes is extremely wide.

So a great company can be a poor investment if the price or the liquidity is wrong, too high, whatever it may be.

Yeah, and I think that's the part where the debate is.

I mean, people can gamble on sports, penny stocks, buy crypto, buy options, or take massive risks in all kinds of public markets.

But if they want to invest in certain private companies, suddenly the rules say, unless you meet a wealth threshold, you can't participate.

So

Is it investor protection or is it just a very blunt filter?

We'll kind of go over that again, as I mentioned later on, past the Berkshire.

But first, we're going to start with Berkshire because I think the meeting gave investors a really useful contrast.

Berkshire is not trying to be exciting.

It's not trying to win every trend.