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About 400 engineers of IO with connections to Apple joined Open AI in an acquisition. Apple's lawsuit against Open AI with which it had started a partnership in AI in 2024 which has soured states-

"OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets” 

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Saudi Aramco raised $26 billion in 2019 IPO compared to SpaceX to raise $80 billion in 2026.

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Traditional IPO's have raised $7 billion down a huge 94% from this time last year says this report in the WSJ. IPO of Rivian a new electric car manufacturer in 2021 was priced so high that it made the valuation of the new company at over $70 billion more than that of Ford Motor. Rivian had only made a little over 1000 cars in 2021 and about 7000 cars in the first half of 2021, which shows the size of the excess and the potential waste of capital that could be better allocated to vital needs for the economy such as achieving self reliance in semiconductor chips for the US which is not getting the funding it deserves and needs. These kinds of excesses are now a thing of the past. Larger companies, well known names such as Intel's Mobileye subsidiary or companies with a with a proven track record are now the companies that are more likely to have success with IPO's, as the economic environment, higher interest rates and other changes lead to the withering away of the novel idea startups of the past. Startups that had no meaningful effect on improving people's lives in any significant way, or strengthened the US economy and industrial base, and merely sucked up valuable resources.  It is not that the US lacks the resources to compete effectively with any country in the world including China, in renewables, in semiconductors, in 5G, in new technologies, it is just that hundreds of billions of dollars are going into unproductive channels and wasted. ...

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IPO of Rail America closed at $13,75 cents a share on the NYSE, down 8% from its initial public offering price of $15. A total of 22 million shares were sold at a price below its $16-$18 range. Like other such companies bought out by private equity firms Rail America has aheavy debt load of $714 million, or 60% of its capitalization.

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In the focus on a dazzling IPO in this report one finds no mention of what this company does at all much less its meaning in people's lives in proportion to the size of the investment. Looking up Figma one finds it enables collaboration for designing digital products. The company raised $1.3 billion for 9% of the company sold to investors making it get a value of $13 billion.

At such moments much of the razzle dazzle of IPO's raising huge tons of money for anything but kids education, and healthcare, lifestyle education, better community infrastructure including sports that directly impacts the quality of life in America, needs necessary skepticism and new vigor for a new path to be forged for the years ahead in our investment making structures and decisions.

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What was it like to be an American in those days? Sense of duty and a fighting spirit. Col. Dave Severance was commander of the Marines that landed on Iwo Jima, the 7 mile long volcanic island 660 miles south of Japan, on Feb. 19, 1945. The picture of marines raising the flag on the top of Suribachi mountain was taken as Marines battled entrenched Japanese troops. James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, was on the beach below, says this report in NYT, as Severance passes away at age 102 in La Jolla, California.   This picture has become a classic of American resolve and spirit since then. It is also about humility with what Queen Elizabeth calls "self-discipline and quiet good humored resolve" of the British and by extension Americans.  When asked about the photo and his role in Iwo Jima immortalized in John Wayne's role in The Sands of Iwo Jima, Severance said- "I never thought about it. Just that I was a Marine for 30 years and I never ended up in jail." ...

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The Facebook IPO on the first day of trading on May 18, 2012 barely remained above the share price of $38, closing at $38.23

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Report from Smart Ageing Summit at Oxford 2026. It rejects the notion common in society that physical decline is inevitable with age. It puts the responsibility of good health on healthy living which means about 80% of the responsibility is on each one of us to maintain good health. Things that are important says this report are completely abstain from alcohol, avoid processed foods (what RFK Jr is telling us as Health Secretary), prioritize sleep, cultivating a "not-meat" mindset, not eating after 6.30 pm. Other studies such as the Oxford Population Health with half a million UK participants show environmental exposures and healthy living habits have far greater importance than biological ageing and inherited genetics. Which also supports this conclusion that it is upto each one of us to build a better quality of life as we age. We assume here that the society we live in is healthy and there are no natural disasters such as climate change or human made disasters such as wars and conflicts, human exacerbation disasters such as not investing in healthcare, education and infrastructure for good public services such as transportation, parks and recreation. Yet that cannot be taken for granted and it is also important for our own healthy living and our spiritual health to invest some of our time and put our money into making sure that this investment takes place in building a healthy society and environment to live in. We do this in our civic life, as parents at parent teacher meetings, as custodians of the environment, being active in our neighborhoods, in business practices, and in supporting and monitoring investments in education and healthcare for our communities. ...

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Chinese leaders including Xi Jinping have frowned on the accumulation of wealth and the IPO pay day, says this report in the WSJ. The largely unregulated company Alibaba in its role as a financial business, its complex ownership structure, and practices, have met with skepticism from China's financial regulators. They see the financial operations of Alibaba and its businesses as operating with little financial oversight and the state having to assume risks if something failed. The company's business model of payments app Alipay, mutual fund, voluminous data collection, operations as small loan provider to half a billion people, are seen by Chinese leaders and president Xi as posing unknown and unclear risks when not properly regulated. Commercial banks are subject to  tough regulations and capital requirements that Alibaba has avoided. State owned banks supply Alibaba with majority of the funding and take on most of the risk even though Alibaba makes profit from the transactions, is the perception of regulators. China's export model and manufacturing have enable it to create the banking capital on which such internet business models have thrived. In a world where supply chains are being redone, and following the pandemic, there are questions about how businesses that were created in the period before the pandemic should operate in a different environment. ...

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$3.2 billion IPO offering for palm oil and plantation business company in Malaysia, Felda Global.

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Facebook briefly reaches the $38 price of its IPO offering in July 2013.

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GM plans to sell stock at a range of $32-33 compared to $26-29 planned previously. The total value of the offering could reach $22.8 billion. Under an overallotment option the IPO could reach 550 million shares, with a value of common shares of $18.2 billion. After the IPO the government's stake would go down from 61% to 26%. The US spent $49.5 billion to rescue GM, the government now expects to raise $13 billion. $9.5 billion was returned to the government earlier.

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The Coal India IPO will bring $151 billion rupees ($3.39 billion). This is India's largest IPO. The IPO drew demand of $52.48 billion. The Indian government's goal is to raise 400 billion rupees for the fiscal year ending April 1, by selling stakes in state-owned companies.

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China Cinda Asset Management Company's $2.46 billion IPO in November 2013. Cinda was originally setup to handle bad and non-performing loans in 1999. It was never shut down as happened for comparable institutions in other countries. In recent years it has operated on commercial lines.

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GM is keen to proceed with an IPO that would give it a chance to be seen as not reliant on the government, to be a legitimate company once again.

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Efforts to raise money by Eventbrite, a event ticketing internet startup in the U.S. Eventbrite raised $60 million from T. Rowe Price Group and Tiger Global Management in late stage financing. Private investments in late stage financing have accelerated in 2011-2013. In the 1st quarter of 2013 $2.2 billion was raised in late stage venture capital investments compared to $672 million raised through venture capital backed IPO's, according to figures put together by the National Venture Capital Association from Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Thomson Reuters. For 2012 late stage financing raised $8.6 billion compared to $21.5 billion in IPO's, including the $16 billion for Facebook IPO. Excluding the Facebook IPO, IPO's raised $5.5 billion, much less than the late stage financing. Investors who purchased Facebook Inc. privately just prior to the IPO, face paper losses at the current trading price in April 2013 of $25.73 per share, making investors wary of heavily hyped up IPO's. SurveyMonkey, a web survey company has raised $800 million from private equity and debt investments. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act lets startups remain private longer by allowing startups to have over 500 investors before having to disclose financial statements to the public....

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Analysts raised questions about the 57% of IPO shares in the Facebook IPO that are being sold by private holders. By comparison the figure was 28% for Google and 38% for LinkedIn.

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Facebook says in its IPO filing that it has 845 millon users worldwide. This is up 39% from the prior year. Revenue is up 88% from the prior year. Facebook's 2011 revenue is $4.27 billion, according to eMarketer. Facebook's 2011 profit was up 65% from the prior year. Analysts say costs and expenses are growing faster than revenues. R&D costs including employee hiring and equity compensation went up to $114 million in 2011 from $9 million in 2010. Facebook had 3,200 employees in Dec. 2011, compared to 2,172 in the prior year. Revenues come from online ads. Ads on the Facebook site increased by 42% in 2011 over the prior year, and average price per ad increased by 18% in this period. Ads are generated using the information provided by users on demographic factors, age, location, gender, education, work history and specific interests- so that subsets of users can be targeted by advertiserrs of products.

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How marijuana in schools poses a problem in US schools- pot in class reduces diligent work in classrooms. Costly policy errors that are producing ill effects in states hitting health, education and the American spirit- poor performance in schools and deficits in attention, says this report in WSJ.

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The problems with the the Facebook IPO price include the extremely high valuation of 42 times current earnings, says Winkler, especially considering the learning curve for making advertising effective on a social network platform. This suggests large volatility in the share price before settling down. The fact that Goldman Sachs, Accel and other so--called "smart money" is selling about half of their holdings also is cause for concern.

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Patrick Soon-Shiong Surgeon, medical businessman and LA Times Owner, bought the LA Times for $500 million in 2018 which is now incurring losses of $48 million. He wants to take the LA Times public with an IPO offering. Soon-Shiong made $6 billion with blood thinner heparin of APP Pharmaceuticals and Abraxis Biosciences chemotherapy drug Abraxane, both firms he founded.

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India's largest IPO for the government owned phone company BSNL for $10 billion .

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Under Blackstone private equity ownership Hilton expanded overseas, acquired the international operations, and increased room capacity and revenues. It also almost doubled the debt load to about $13.5 billion in 2013 and hit a rough patch in timing because the 2007 buyout happened close to the 2008-2009 financial crisis. About $4 billion of the debt load has been reduced by negotiating with creditors during this period. Room capacity went up from 501,000 in 2006 to 665,000 in 2013, occupancy from 72.5% to 72.3%, average daily rate from $124 to $136, and revenue from $8.2 billion to $9.4 billion. Hilton adjusted earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation were up 25% from 2010 to nearly $2 billion in 2012, according to SEC filings. Hilton now plans an IPO for the first half of 2014 to raise $1.25 to $2 billion. About 80% of rooms under construction are outside the U.S. showing the opportunities overseas Blackstone has focussed on.

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Xiaomi is China's leading brand. It is very different from other companies in China and America. It is tightly controlled by its founder Lei Jun who has built a loyal following for the brand  through fan clubs and creating an enthusiastic following. Because the firm is run by founder Lei Jun it can make quick decisions to enter a market. Lei Jun was a computer science student in Wuhan in 1987 as China opened up to the world.  By 2017- in three years from being zero in the Indian market place in 2014- Xiaomi had become the largest smartphone company in India. The company was launched in 2010. Profit margins are thin about 1% in a very competitive pricing market.  Metrics are based on revenue per user of $9 per user from an installed base of 190 million smartphone users, spending 54 minutes a day using Xiaomi's app, game and other services, or 20% of the phone use time. Revenue per user comes from advertising, and from commissions on the apps and games it sells to its user base. In 2015 Xiaomi had a loss, in 2016 sales dropped, in 2017 new products led to a resurgence in the market with sales increasing 68%. As Xiaomi goes into its IPO, experts say much of the $10 billion from the IPO could go into reinvestment as Xiaomi reinvents itself and moves into other internet business. ...

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Uber built up about $30 billion in operating losses and burnt up huge amounts of capital with its access to capital from from financial markets in the US, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. 2023 is the first year for profits of $1.43 billon of which the larger part of it $1 billion is from equity investments. It went public in 2019. Lyft a competitor of Uber has not yet turned a profit. Contrary to the general impression these kinds of startups have burnt enormous amounts of capital, and diverted capital from essential needs such as education, healthcare services, and public transportation. Consider the case of lack of investment in the New York subway system that lags so far behind that in other cities such as Tokyo to make it incomprehensible. The New York Port Bus Terminal  needed to be replaced- the planning took 10 years and the new terminal building will not be completed till 2032. Essential investments that improve the lives of millions of people in our cities are neglected or delayed. The real crowding out of capital from essential public needs is a feature of the Reagan era economics that have created many of the problems we face today of underfunding where it really counts. The capital allocation system is distorted so that capital does not generate proper returns or benefit the largest part of the population. ...