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Bill Gurley Profile picture
@bgurley
Sep 30, 2020 • 4 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
Congrats to @moskov & team @asana as well as Alex Karp & team @PalantirTech on their respective Direct Listings today. Also thanks to team at Morgan Stanley (big supporter of DLs), @stacey_cunning & team @NYSE who make this work so well, & Citadel (DMM).
Fixing the IPO problem was first championed by icons like Pierre Omidyar (Ebay), & Larry/Sergey (Google) who all felt IPOs should be "open to all." Then Barry McCarthy/@eldsjal (@Spotify) broke open the DL door (w/ tons of hard work), & @stewart (@SlackHQ) widened that doorway.
Our entire industry benefits from the work of these pioneers; we owe them all our gratitude. Michael Moritz said "the choice of a direct listing or a traditional IPO has become a test of two attributes: courage and intelligence." The "courage" part is the hardest of the two. 🙏
And yes, I should have mentioned the critical early work here of Bill Hambrecht. Here is a quote from 1999. Same key two issues the DL fixes. Image

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More from @bgurley

Bill Gurley Profile picture
Jan 23
As a 3rd-party, curious observer, I have several naive, unanswered questions about the Stargate project. Obviously understand that they have no obligation to disclose. Here is list with responses wide open. I would love to be able to aggregate the best answers at some point.
1. Corporate Structure

The OpenA press release says that Stargate is "a new company." Is Stargate established as a standard C-corp, LLC, a joint venture, or something else entirely?
2. CEO Leadership

Will Stargate have an independent CEO? Who will lead Stargate on a daily basis, and how is that person chosen? Will they be as operationally intense as the XAI team that launched Memphis?
Read 11 tweets
Bill Gurley Profile picture
Aug 7, 2023
You can frequently read articles referencing VC "dry powder" and inferring that these large dollar amounts are "burning a hole" in someone's pocket & will imminently find their way to the market. I totally understand the assumption, but things don't really work this way. [cont]
First and foremost, undrawn VC dollars are not on the IRR clock. There is no urgency to draw them down. The money isn't actually at the VC firm, they are still sitting in the coffers at the LPs. No VC firm I have ever been exposed to feels "pressure" to "get dollars to work."
On the back of a market reset, & w/ portfolio valuations being slashed, GPs are mostly sharing bad news w/ LPs. No GP wants to look aggressive/carefree. Imagine being a teenager with two speeding tickets & a fender-bender insisting on taking the new family car out Saturday night.
Read 7 tweets
Bill Gurley Profile picture
Mar 14, 2023
Some (below) are arguing US capitalism would be better off if SVB had completely failed (also wiping out depositors). History suggests that out gov't treated big banks (2008) & big airlines (2020) FAR BETTER than SVB - in both cases fully protecting EQUITY shareholders. (cont)
In 2008, during the GFC, our gov't bailed out most of the major money center banks. Equity shareholders & bondholders kept whole. GS received help AFTER they received a preferred investment from Warren Buffet. Here is the real kicker (cont). investopedia.com/insights/too-b…
The GFC was the result of a specific flawed financial product that was an "offering" of these same banks. So far, the identified SVB failure was a bad risk management process. In the GFC case, the "bailed-out" players directly benefited from the flawed product.
Read 6 tweets
Bill Gurley Profile picture
Jan 17, 2023
As people come to terms with the weight of our new environment, they are slowly beginning to realize how radically things have changed. One area in particular that has changed - the required level of "corporate performance" needed to simply survive (let alone thrive). 🧵
2/ Building startups WAS a historically difficult endeavor (see chart). The past 5 years things have been "much, much easier." Cash was easy to come by (round frequency unprecedented), & no one was held to any profit goals, yet many companies still received high valuations.
3/ Cash is now hard to come by; investors are expecting solid unit economics & earlier profitability. Everything is immediately 5-10X harder. As such, survival is now depedent on hard-core, disciplined, top decile business execution, which no one learned in the past 5 years.
Read 9 tweets
Bill Gurley Profile picture
Dec 13, 2022
Many people are sharing great @Coach_Leach videos of his funny quips, but there are three things about him that in my mind stand above his unquestionably great humor. First he touched many lives 1-1. He took the time. Great stories like this abound:
Second, his coaching tree is immense. Many that learn an art/skill hide their secrets deep. But none of us learn if there are no teachers. Mike's willingness to give back to the sport he loved is nearly unprecedented. A great sign of a life well lived. hailstate.com/news/2022/10/1…
Lastly, Michael Lewis once called Mike Leach "a national treasure." It's hard to imagine that a college football coach could bring so much intrigue & happiness to so many people. I watched every game I could. So sad he is gone. So happy to see the universal love. 🏴‍☠️
Read 4 tweets
Bill Gurley Profile picture
Dec 4, 2022
Enjoyed e106 of @theallinpod. On FTX, I think they nailed a few important things:
1) Contradiction between smartest man in the room (pre) & "aw-shucks I don't know much" (post)
2) Sophistication of the corporate org (in size, scope, etc) also inconsistent with "aw-shucks" (cont)
3) Agree that SBF has built confidence in talking his way out of things. That said, doing voluntary depositions is a really bad idea.
4) One thing I don't think enough people mention - he intentionally created/discouraged proper governance. He insisted on no board, etc. (cont)
Interesting idea that he achieved things AS A RESULT of having a privileged upbringing. Probably impossible to prove, but certainly the credentials of his schools and his family relationships were helpful along the way. open.spotify.com/episode/75monu…
Read 4 tweets

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