You should check out Michael Lewis's podcast "Against the Rules".. it discusses basically what happens when the referee'd in life are rigged. In 2008 it was the bond rating agencies whose fictitious A+ approvals on subprime loans cause the collapse. In 2000 it was an influx of capital due to low interest rates and lowered capital gains (The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997) that propped up companies with no revenues who pushed for IPOs. IPOs themselves were relatively underpriced (even though they were inherently worthless based on the fundamentals long term) which cause the pop phenomenon that I believe encouraged IPO investment to ride the wave. So in these cases where was the SEC? And what was the fiduciary duty of the underwriters? In all honestly today the tech IPO market kind of sucks because of all of this. It takes years and unicorn status to IPO which is a reversal and I think another problem.