Startups ‘are staying private way too long’ says Marc Benioff

Re:Startups ‘are staying private way too long’ says Marc Ben... by reilly3000 on Friday October 04, 2019 @01:23AM (#21155006)

It IS painful. Today's laws reflect the misdeeds of the last 100 years. Compliance is incredibly expensive and slows down everything. I don't think its a bad thing at all, but most people don't understand the scope of the legal burden of being a public company. As a private citizen, I have a legal obligation to not murder people. As a public company, analogously, one would have to file a report every few months detailing how many people you didn't murder. Please indulge my terrible analogy.

I'm with Mr. Benioff on the point that private companies can harbor a lot of decay, while over-concentrating wealth. However, data shows that small-firm IPOs are simply not very profitable, and acquisition can be much more attractive: https://www.sec.gov/info/smallbus/acsec/acsec-090712-ritter-...

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Re:Startups ‘are staying private way too long’ says Marc Ben... by scurvy on Friday October 04, 2019 @01:56AM (#21155172)

I work at a publicly traded company and deal with compliance and audit teams on a regular basis. It's not the end of the world. It's not overly costly. It's a good check and balance to ensure things are on the up and up.

As companies get larger, the risk for fraud and misdeeds increases. Kickbacks, payoffs, etc. Compliance and auditors are a good thing. Trust but verify.

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