"Cha-ching!"

Business hasn't been about the long term for a while, especially if you're a startup. The goal is to gain recognition and sell at the first good chance you get... rinse, repeat.

You only need to look at what happened to Sears and K-Mart to know that what people look for in value of a company is what you can sell off, not how well you can compete.

Giving options to your executives is....historically really risky.

because unlikely to be a bigger buyer later, so sell now or chase ipo. likely vc-controlled, so less risky to get the (winning) liquidity now.

once you hit a certain level, you run out of buyers, and thus lose much of your ability to sell at multiples over value... so effective price ceiling.

> once you hit a certain level, you run out of buyers,

There's always salesforce :).

No, thank you for a cogent analysis; interesting to me how the incentives shift as you grow and how an IPO can be riskier than a sale.

yep, good comparison! crm bought tableau for $15B+ and google was fine w/ Looker @ $2B, and data is a clear high-ceiling market.

not a lot of buyers at that level, so as soon as > $1B, and bought for way more than 10X on revenue, so unclear if/when they'd see $6B again. capital is cheap right now too, and while interest rates are expected to stay low for 3+ yr, in reality no one knows as the current situation is confusing economists...

I would guess the 3.5x valuation from last year.

Stacks and stacks of guaranteed money?

Let's hope it was a reverse merger.

He said, expecting the answer, "no."

SoftBank stupid money is gone.