Yes I agree, we need more public companies in Europe.

Private companies are inherently less social since they don’t allow ordinary people to participate in growth.

In this sense, they’re selfish.

PS: yes I know that there are also downsides to public companies. But looking at the trade-offs I prefer that success can be shared as broadly as possible.

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bell-cot 3 hours ago | parent [-]

At least in America, "a successful private company went public" often translates into "ordinary people got a bit of gold, selfish vulture capitalists butchered the goose, and there was precious little success or growth for anyone after that".

(Also - might your "allow ordinary people to participate" sympathies extend to people who would like to participate in your own financial affairs?)

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baxtr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, exactly!

Selfish VC becoming filthy rich through an IPO is exactly my point. Up to an IPO a private company will only make their owners rich - in your example "selfish vulture capitalists".

After an IPO anyone can participate. When Google, Amazon, Apple went public, VCs got rich. Everyone after that included every day people like you and me.

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bell-cot 2 hours ago | parent [-]

No - the selfish vulture capitalists are the outsiders who purchase a private company which has been successful for many years, then butcher it. There is no IPO - it is "you own X, and we are offering you $Y million to sell it to us".

After that - X's best assets are sold off (the VC's get the money), X goes deeply into debt (again, the VC's get the money), many of the employees are laid off, and X generally goes bankrupt within 7 years - because what is left of it can't make the payments on the debt.

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Gooblebrai an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I don't understand your comment. You are both talking about public companies, and suddenly you are now talking about private equity?

	▲	bell-cot an hour ago \| parent [-]
		(You're right - I made a mess of things, and inter-mingled the cases where a privately-owned company is sold directly to private equity / vulture capitalists, and the case where a privately-owned company "goes public" - but that still does not lead to a happy ending.)

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lotsofpulp 14 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

>the selfish vulture capitalists are the outsiders who purchase a private company which has been successful for many years, then butcher it.

Sounds like the selfish vulture capitalists are the insiders who sell the company.

>X's best assets are sold off (the VC's get the money), X goes deeply into debt (again, the VC's get the money), many of the employees are laid off, and X generally goes bankrupt within 7 years - because what is left of it can't make the payments on the debt.

This doesn't make any sense, because X is the original asset. If part of X is sold, then the remaining portion of X loses value (assuming the sold part is the good part). If X is used as collateral, then it also loses value.