> What's the point of a "confidential S-1"?

“Under the JOBS Act, it has been possible since April 2012 for ‘emerging growth companies’ to file a Form S-1 on a confidential basis, only making the contents public 21 days prior to the road show for the IPO” [1]. Since 2017 and 2025 it’s been available to basically all companies [2].

Withdrawing an IPO looks bad. Confidential filing lets issuers start and have the option to abort the process without taking reputational damage. (The specifics of OpenAI’s filing, and any back and forth with the SEC, remains confidential.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_S-1

[2] https://www.sec.gov/about/divisions-offices/division-corpora...