They have collectively had a return of -49% when the S&P 500 have had a return of 58%. It shows that all of the value went to the VCs and the public markets were the “bigger fools”.

Oklo seems to have recovered thanks to the AI boom and they made a deal with Meta to deliver power fir their data centers. It looks like the best performing YC stock

The goal of the startup doesn’t matter once they take VC funding. The goal of the investors is the exit - either via acquisition or going public.

The most likely outcome is failure, the second most likely outcome is an acquisition. Going public is a distant third

Thieves steal because they know a fence will take the goods of their hands. The fence will take the goods of their hands, because they know they can sell them on.

People buy into IPOs partially because they know a lively secondary market exists, where they can offload the shares later. Index funds are part of that secondary market.

Just to be clear, I don't think investors in IPOs are thieves. I'm just saying that you can legitimately say that the secondary market financies companies just as much as the primary market does. Perhaps a better example might be farmers selling to food factories selling to retailers selling to me. I never hand money directly to the farmers, but you can still say with a straight face that my purchase of bacon funds the pig farm.