📈 IPO 2.0: the Chamath SPAC complex

“Doesn't it introduce the risk of the retail investor? We're seeing more retail participation via syndicates, via one-off investments, online marketplaces, and also SPACs, where the retail investor relies on Chamath ... is there not some inevitable kind of SEC backlash and consideration around how are private companies ultimately raising money and how much they are disclosing? We face this regulatory threat.”

“I am one of five groups that put up any money when we do a pipe in our deals. ... So, for example, like, you know, in SoFi, I think we put in $275 million.”

“The truth of the matter is Chamath is pioneering here. And I think it's been incredible to watch the competition in choice. And as Chamath knows, I participated in a couple of the deals that he's done.”

“it seems like there's also a deleveraging happening with the funds that bought a lot of these SPACs and DSPAC listings in the aftermarket, right? ... Which kind of creates a bit of a logjam on the back end for a lot of these.”

“Any random dog and cat was able to raise a SPAC in Q1. And now on the backend, you're going to start seeing some real difficulty. So deals are getting re-traded constantly, which means that IPOs that should have been done at price X is getting discounted by 20% and 30% to get the deal done.”

“And this is where the SPAC makes a ton of sense, because you have a very certain cost of capital. You can now architect a cap table where the founder remains in control, where they and the employees are still more than 50 percent. And you pull in the time of the IPO. Why is that important? Typically today, these companies were taking 12 plus years to go public. Now with SPACs, they've come back in and they're closer to seven and eight years.”

“Last year, $80 billion was raised in Spacks. This quarter, $100 billion in Spacks. And Spacks are that you cross over investing. It's taking, you know, growth stage, private equity style risk in the public markets with this proliferation of capital. And we're seeing the benefit in the early stage. ... And I think, you know, I think it's the next step up and we just keep seeing these step ups.”

“Oh, so, so, you know, live by the SPAC, die by the SPAC. That's what they always say in this business.”

“a lot of the folks on Twitter, you know, when you see the market straight down and they complain, my reaction is stop crying and do your own work”

“there's more speculative risk seeking in the public markets in a way that I don't think we've ever seen ... But it's going to be a lot of speculative betting and a lot of losses”

“So in many ways, the SPAC market benefited from rates at zero because you could synthetically be long SPACs as almost the way of being synthetically long fixed income. ... Now as rates go up, that's not true.”

“we should have Friedberg tell the story of Metromile, but it closed its SPAC transaction and went public and it's doing great”

“IPOE is merging with SoFi. It's an incredible company led by an incredible CEO, Anthony Noto. [Friedberg: 'It doubled today. It's insane.']”

“We just announced three — D, E, and F... they're filed with the SEC now... [and IPOB = Opendoor] was announced on Tuesday.”

“I reserved IPO A through Z on the NYSE. I hope to fulfill that. And I think I will... My personal perspective, it's probably us and maybe one or two other people who really dominate the space... In every deal, I write a minimum of $100 million personally, and that's a lot. That's skin in the game.”