If you were a pre-IPO stockholder you would also be a post-IPO stockholder. Selling some of your shares in the IPO at $20 and the rest in a few months at $40 may better than selling a few at the IPO at $40 and the rest in a few months at $20.

Agreed. Gives some ammo to spotify avoiding a traditional route.

The cost of the pop on the float is ~$250 million ($8 on 36 million shares). There's something like 400 million shares in the company.

It's not so bad.

Seems they would be happy with the bump?

If their intent is to cash out now, they are probably happy enough. Anyone with a long-term interest in the company would probably prefer for more of that valuation flow into the company's coffers, rather than to the underwriters and others with little long-term interest.

What are you talking about? The "bump" off of the fake price that got made up yesterday?

Dropbox was worth $12b yesterday, just like it is today. And a few banks suckered Drew into screwing himself, his investors and his employees by selling shares at a $8b valuation.

They mean the set of people who actually sold to institutional investors at that price, in the process of listing.