010 – Direct Listings and Predictions for 2020

Doug and Gene look forward to 2020 and talk direct listings, what needs to happen for them to be mainstream, Tesla, and Apple.
Top 3 Takeaways:

* Creating a mechanism for companies to raise capital as part of a direct listing is key to their adoption.
* IPO investors and pre-direct listing investors have different expectations but may serve a similar purpose.
* Companies in new markets with open-ended growth opportunities are often given a pass when it comes to early fundamentals, and this is likely to continue.






Show Notes

* [1:04] What will it take for direct listings to take off in 2020?
* [3:35] What kind of return will pre-direct listing investors expect?
* [4:25] Doug thinks of the rounds ahead of a direct listing as a form of extended underwriting.
* [7:05] Has anything changed about how private companies think about profitability in the wake of Uber, Lyft, and WeWork?
* [8:00] Gene on the Tesla story.
* [11:20] When a company is playing in an open-ended market at the very beginning of their growth curve, the market doesn’t want to miss them, and investors will pay up for access to them.
* [14:08] Why we think Apple will be the top-performing FAANG stock of the year again.

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