Shreya Murthy

This allows companies to test the waters on follow-on financings, spin-offs, other capital markets transactions.

You can go and test the waters.

So there's no question that companies are staying private longer.

Everyone knows this.

Private markets are incredibly deep, driven both by mega-fundraisers from the largest venture capital firms, crossover investors from hedge funds coming into the market, and then also plenty of activity from the hyperscalers and strategics who can write a $10 billion check into a private company no problem.

So, the end result is that the public markets have been losing companies to private markets for years.

Exchanges don't want this.

Public markets investors don't want this.

And so, there's a huge demand to make going public less painful.

Confidential filings don't fully obscure investor protections because all the traditional data needs to be released before any money changes hands.

But it speeds up the time to market and increases coordination between private companies and their future shareholders in public markets.

And so that's why companies are allowed to file confidentially.

And I don't know.

After reading that, I don't really have a problem with it.

But you let us know.

What do you think?

Should it be illegal?

Should it be straight to jail if you file confidentially?

I don't know.

We can roll it back.