No they didn't. They were picky at the seed stage. They were picky in their first priced round. They were picky in every subsequent round. There was never a point where they wanted your money. The most promising companies fight off investors when word gets around they're raising.

There is never a point in the lifecycle of any of these companies where they wanted random retail investors with no network on their cap tables. The kinds of companies that do want those investors tend, for clear reasons, not to be the kind you want to invest in.

You don't want accreditation rules relaxed or eliminated. You simply want Stripe to be a public company instead of a private one. Fair enough, but Stripe doesn't want to be a public company.

▲

colesantiago 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Even worse. This means that no wealth will be created for people who actually want to invest.

With Stripe's non IPO example, many will follow and will stay private.

So more gatekeeping.

▲

tptacek 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Again: you can make a coherent case that companies should be required to be public at a much earlier stage (I don't think it's going to happen, but you do you). It has nothing at all to do with accreditation though. You're pining for access to companies that wouldn't take your money even if you were a well-known institutional investor. They get to pick which VC/PE firms they work with, and they know it, and it is their job to pick the ones that best serve the interests of their firms.

I mean this respectfully, but: you do not sound, in this thread, like someone whose registration on Stripe's cap tables would be a service to Stripe. To society? Maybe? Who knows. But that's not how Stripe makes decisions.

I also think you drastically overestimate how much broad wealth creation would follow from letting retail investors into private tech companies. You're debating entirely based on a survivor artifact and ignoring the fact that most tech companies --- even most of the highly-capitalized ones --- return $0 to investors.

▲

colesantiago 17 hours ago | parent [-]

I love this projection you're providing to me, how much money did you lose on these companies?

I am in and have invested in YC startups, because I know which ones have growth potential and upside.

> you can make a coherent case that companies should be required to be public at a much earlier stage (I don't think it's going to happen, but you do you)

I didn't say they had to be a public company, you can invest in Stripe via the secondary market (which I have done before with other companies) but even then this is for accredited investors.

There are lots of unprofitable public companies on the stock market that also return $0 to investors and have no dividends.

But this trend of many private companies choosing to stay private obviously isn't going to help those except the very rich and accredited investors.

▲

tptacek 16 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm a principal at Fly.io (W20). I'm familiar with the dynamic.

I don't invest in tech companies.

Most funded tech companies don't return funds to investors. Noncontroversial claim.

Investors invest in tech companies as a/in a portfolio strategy. They don't expect any one investment to succeed, and they allocate to the asset class in part to get exposure to decorrelated assets.

That's not at all what retail investors are doing.

You keep talking about accreditation. The companies you want to invest in don't want your money and they don't care that you're accredited.

▲

colesantiago 10 hours ago | parent [-]

> You keep talking about accreditation. The companies you want to invest in don't want your money and they don't care that you're accredited.

You don't know that 100% and unfortunately for you the YC companies accepted my money and I now hold stock in these companies.

▲

tptacek 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Congratulations?

▲

colesantiago 9 hours ago | parent [-]

So why are you projecting "The companies you want to invest in don't want your money." when this is obviously not true at all.

I don't know which companies you tried to invest in (tech or not) but I am assuming most of them rejected you given your constant projecting towards me.

I don't want smart people/investors who saw the future early (most that are retail and some are academics who actually build this tech) who want to get exposure to the growth companies making an impact to use extremely risky and shady financial vehicles like Multi-Layer SPVs and tokenized private stocks just to get some exposure.

When all in all it isn't the real thing and they get rugged anyway.

As long as people like you are in favor in excluding these people who just to buy a private company stock on secondary markets, then the gatekeeping will continue.

▲

tptacek 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't even understand what this thread is about anymore. The claim of mine that you're trying to rebut is "dealflow is a thing". If you want to argue that it isn't, be my guest, but I'm not going to sign up to hash it out with you.

▲

colesantiago 9 hours ago | parent [-]

ok?

I and may other angel investors are proof you're obviously wrong so...

▲

tptacek 9 hours ago | parent [-]

Because you managed to get a couple of YC companies to take your money?

▲

colesantiago 9 hours ago | parent [-]

You said "The companies you want to invest in don't want your money."

Your words, you should own them.

I only want more smart people I know to have the chance to be angel investors in these companies and to be able to access secondary markets to buy and sell these shares.

What's wrong with that?

	▲	tptacek 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The companies we're talking about here, like Stripe. Broadly speaking, promising companies do not want random strangers on their cap tables. They barely want random venture capitalists on their cap tables. I'm glad you have friends at other startups that want to work with you. That's not something you're going to be able to say about a random person.