IPO Special with Jon Avina and Henry Blodget #148

TWiST Episode #148 IPO Special with Jon Avina and Henry Blodget
Overwhelmed by all the talk of pre-money valuations, liquidating shares and S1s? TWiST is here to help with a special all IPO show devoted to Groupon, LinkedIn and the like. We’ll explain the latest happenings in the market with the help of our guests Jon Avina of the law firm Wilson Sonsini and Henry Blodget of Business Insider.

Go to http://bit.ly/lH68cz?r=td to read more about the companies that have recently gone public or filed for IPOs.

0:00-1:00 Introduction and welcome of guests.
1:00-2:00 Jason explains the inspiration for doing a show devoted to IPOs.
2:00-3:00 Welcome to Jon Avina of Wilson Sonsini and Henry Blodget of Business Insider.
3:00-4:00 GoToMeeting ad. The contest has been extended to June 10, so sign up soon to enter.
4:00-5:00 What is an IPO and why does a company chose to do one?
5:00-6:00 When should private companies consider going public, as opposed to trading privately over secondary markets?
6:00-6:45 So VCs buy shares from the founders to get a larger stake in that company?
6:45-8:15 How much of going public is dependent on the ability for founders to liquidate shares versus actually raising money privately?
8:15-9:15 Are we setting ourselves up in the current market to experience a replay of 1999/2000?
9:15-10:45 Disclosing your financials is one of the hardest parts of going public, yes?
10:45-11:45 Why are companies that are garbage are allowed to go public?
11:45-13:30 What’s different now is that there’s a backlog of highly profitable companies, so will that prevent a massive bubble from bursting? (Watch the clip.)
13:30-14:30 LinkedIn is a powerful company with an incredible graph of people’s employment, yes?
14:30-15:45 Is the inflation of LinkedIn shares in particular a bubble?
15:45-17:30 Who priced LinkedIn so wrong?
17:30-20:00 What happened to the concept of the stock auction? Google did one. If LinkedIn had done an auction, would this have worked out better for them? (Watch the clip.)
20:00-21:30 Tyler: What is really the driving factor behind the board members voting in favor of an IPO?
21:30-23:00 Is the second market replacing the public market?
23:00-25:00 Are we being overly protective and creating a nanny state when we don’t allow people to invest and purchase stock?
25:00-25:15 The SEC is considering changing some of the laws about the number of shares issued, the number of investors, etc. We’ll discuss after the break.
25:15-27:00 Squarespace ad. Announcement of new promotion: Sign up for Squarespace using the promo code TWI30 to receive 30% off for 3 months.
27:00-28:00 Henry, explain the difference between primary and secondary offerings?
28:00-31:00 What does Henry think the market cap of Facebook will be the week of its IPO?
31:00-33:00 Jon, are you working on the Groupon IPO? Have you looked at it, what are your thoughts, Jon?
33:00-36:00 What concerns you about the Groupon S1, Henry?
36:00-37:30 Why haven’t Google or Microsoft bought LinkedIn?
37:30-40:00 What impact will this have on talent? Will this create a massive rush of talent back into the technology industry?
40:00-41:30 TWiST List member Rodrigo Dauster, who helped produce this episode, asks: Is an IPO the biggest badge of honor an entrepreneur can have?
41:30-43:30 Henry, do you agree that It should be illegal to only sell a few shares of a stock?
43:30-48:00 Let’s talk about Yandex, the Russian search engine. What’s happening on a global scale today? Is the global market for IPOs condensing into one entity?
48:00-49:00 How far behind is the public in terms of knowledge of the market?
49:00-50:30 Will the public become so enamored with this crop of IPOs that they run up the market once again?
50:30-52:00 Groupon, Pandora, HomeAway, Zillow, Kayak: When you look at that crop, what do you think of these five companies?
52:00-54:20 If you bought those companies on SecondMarket last year, the shares would have gone up. Is that the better opportunity? (Watch the clip.)
54:20-55:30 How do the SEC and the regulators look at the secondary market and the crowd-funding trend?
55:30-57:00 Thank you to Jon, Henry, Tyler and our sponsors. And thank for joining us in the studio, Executive Producer Mary Ann Halford.

Multilingual? Translate this episode of TWiST into another language and email the transcript to translate@thisweekin.com

FOLLOW ON TWITTER
Jason: @jason
Jon: @wilsonsonsini
Henry: @hblodget
Tyler: @steepdecline

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Special Thanks to the members of the TWiST List Producer Program!
Executive Producers

• Louis-Eric Simard
• Benjamin Gifford
• Jacek Artymiak
• Octavian Mihai
• Will Paoletto
• Geoffrey Clapp
• Eien Hyett
• Jeff Hoffer
• Kyle Lonzo
• Austin Miller
• Rashaun Sourles
• Robb Kunz
• Greg Berry
• Sean Lynch
• Mary Ann Halford
• Jim Joyce
• Morgan Howard
• Margaret Johns
• Kyle M. Brown
• Paul Cole
• Nick Duncan

Producers

• Eli Coler
• Ted Inoue
• Radek Rybicki
• Hunter Owens
• Christian Owens
• Ben Altieri
• Casey Wach
• Cam Collins
• Ildar Khakimov
• Matti Hallanoro
• Rodrigo Dauster
• Rodrigo Fuentes
• Anthony Ortenzi
• Daniel de la Cruz

Associate Producers

• Brad Pineau
• Kat Ganesan
• Nicholas Christian
• Mau Frontier
• Kyle Braatz
• Serena Ehrlich
• Nathan Hangen
• Lauri Hahne
• JD
• Trudy Baidoo
• Ian Gerstel
• Julian Hearn
• Alex Lotoczko
• James Kennedy
• Benoit Curdy
• Asher Nevins
• Mike Kaltschnee
• Paul Higgins

Supporters

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• Petrus Theron
• Michael Wild
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• Tim de Jardine
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