Top Insights
- Brad's north star: doing what is in the best interest of founders, companies, and employees of the technology ecosystem that has been so good to him.
- For many of Brad's previous investments, the traditional IPO process was long, distracting, and lacked public markets investors with proper long-term alignment.
- Altimeter Capital's BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal): to make going public as simple as a round of private financing. Better, fairer, faster!
- Invest America: Brad's idea to give every American a slice of the ownership of the economy. This program would give every child $2,000 in a locked 401k-style account invested in public equities. Over a lifetime, people would be able to participate in the growth of U.S. industry and to see the benefits of compound interest.
- Information asymmetries that generate large amounts of value for incumbents offer a massive opportunity for startups. People want the data and to decide for themselves. (Examples: Expedia disrupted the travel industry and Zillow is disrupting the residential real estate sales industry)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjYn_u2oe2k&t=1021s
Bill Gurley (Benchmark) & Rich Barton (Zillow) are thought leaders diagnosing why & how the IPO is just a broken a fatally broken process. Key costs from a traditional IPO include:
- Bankers fee for underwriting the IPO & building the book of investors (~5-6% service fee)