I found a folded slip of paper in the pocket of my oldest wool coat this morning, a relic from the 1999 IPO circus.

Standing in the sun-drenched colonnade of the municipal building between meetings, I unfolded a scrap of memo paper dated March 1999. It was a note to my younger self regarding a 'revolutionary' fiber-optics firm that had just gone public without a cent of earnings. The ink has faded to a ghostly grey, but the arrogance of that era remains perfectly legible. It serves as a quiet reminder that while the technology changes, the human appetite for selling hope at a premium remains the most predictable commodity on the market.
Today’s venture-backed exits feel like a frantic game of musical chairs played in a hall of mirrors. We are seeing companies rush to the public markets not because they have mastered their craft or secured their margins, but because the private funding well is beginning to run dry. When a business model requires a glossary of new terminology just to explain why it doesn't make money, you aren't looking at an investment; you are looking at a distribution of risk from the sophisticated to the hopeful.
Price is what you pay, but value is what you eventually discover you’ve lost when the music finally stops.