Rory Driscoll

But you don't know what's going to price.

You don't know what's going to trade.

And maybe they don't want liquidity.

Now, maybe it's a process of starting.

And over the next one or two years, they perform.

They grow.

You grow 20% year on year, whatever it is, 30%.

And you just, over time, build up your market cap.

I don't think we can all stay private forever.

being passed around amongst us, especially if we're not growing at, you know, I mean, the venture cost of capital should be around 30% and the public cost of capital should be around 11.

There does come a point when you're better off in the public markets.

And if it's subscale and cheap, let me tell you what will happen.

People will buy it and they'll make what's called a capital gain.

I mean, if I have the courage of my convictions, I should go away, look at the wealth fund numbers and say, I believe it's cheap at 1.2, I should buy.

You're veering on doing the thing you condemned others to do, which is sneering at a $1, $2, and $3 billion outcome, right?

It's the low end of the public company market cap, but it's a perfectly good outcome.

And to be congratulated, to start a company from nothing and get to $1 or $2 billion in value, get it public, have the chance to compound for 5 or 10 years, it's an awesome achievement.

And you're right.

We will look back and go, the winners were the ones who got a crazy valuation in 2021, and then were able to get out from under that valuation via a down round, a down IPO, or a down M&A.

The bad ones are the guys who are still sitting there looking at their 21 valuation and thinking that's ever coming back.