While narrative is crucial for IPOs, raises exceeding $50 billion cannot be sustained by marketing alone. The sheer volume of capital required necessitates deep scrutiny from institutional investors, making strong financials and fundamentals the ultimate deciding factor, unlike smaller, easily inflated offerings.

SK Hynix's IPO was 7x oversubscribed but only "popped" 14%. This illustrates that at a massive scale, even extreme demand doesn't produce the 80-100% first-day gains often seen in smaller IPOs, as the sheer capital involved tempers volatility.

The traditional purpose of an IPO—raising capital for company growth—is obsolete. Today, companies scale using private equity and only go public to allow early investors and insiders to cash out. This means the public market captures significantly less of a company's early, high-growth phase.

Top-tier private companies like Stripe and Databricks are actively choosing to delay IPOs, viewing the public market as an inferior "product." With access to cheaper private capital and freedom from quarterly scrutiny and activist investors, staying private offers a better environment to build long-term value.

The decision to go public is now driven less by a need for currency or liquidity and more by massive capital requirements, like for AI build-outs, that private markets can no longer satisfy. Solomon notes the current regulatory and market structure makes it unattractive for companies to go public until it's an absolute necessity.

The postponement of Oura's IPO is not company-specific but reflects broader market volatility from rising interest rates. This macroeconomic headwind poses a major risk for Anthropic's anticipated IPO and could dampen investor confidence across the entire AI sector.

SK Hynix's IPO was 7x oversubscribed but only popped 14%. For massive deals, this level of demand doesn't translate to the 80-100% pops seen in smaller IPOs because the absolute capital involved is so large, creating more price stability.

For many large companies today, an IPO's primary purpose has shifted from raising growth capital—which is readily available in private markets—to creating liquidity for early investors and employees. The public offering acts as a valuation marker and an exit opportunity, not a funding necessity.

Contrary to popular belief, an IPO should not be viewed as a liquidity event. Instead, its primary value is in marketing and branding. It signals to the market, customers, and potential employees that the company is stable and "here to stay." The actual liquidity is often constrained by lockups and regulations.