Here's the unpopular take: restraint, not speed, may be the smarter strategy here.
We've spent the last few years watching venture-backed companies sprint toward public markets like it's the only finish line that matters. Go big, go fast, go public. The narrative is so ingrained that when a startup hits unicorn status without filing S-1 paperwork, we treat it like a failure of ambition rather than a choice.
But the math doesn't always work.
Consider what happens when a high-growth company goes public before establishing sustainable unit economics. The company gets its capital infusion, founders get their liquidity events, and then what? The quarterly earnings treadmill begins. Investors who bought at the IPO expect hockey-stick growth to continue indefinitely. When it doesn't, the stock tanks, employees holding options feel betrayed, and the media narrative shifts from "promising startup" to "overhyped failure."
We've seen this story enough times that it should be a cautionary tale, not a template.
The recent market context makes this worse, not better. When private market valuations climb to multiples that would make public investors nervous (80x ARR multiples, for instance), there's an obvious tension. Either those valuations are divorced from reality, or the company going public will immediately disappoint on growth assumptions. Neither outcome is particularly attractive for anyone except the people cashing out at the peak.
Private companies have an underrated advantage: they can operate with longer time horizons. A private software company can spend four months optimizing its AI spending without quarterly earnings calls demanding explanations. A private logistics firm can invest in infrastructure that won't generate returns for years. A private fintech startup can build compliance infrastructure before scaling aggressively. These aren't failures of execution. They're investments in durability.
This doesn't mean companies should stay private forever. At some point, scale requires public capital. But the question is whether going public at peak valuation, with growth rates already baked into the stock price, is actually the moment that serves shareholders best.
The alternative framework is straightforward: go public when the company has proven it can generate sustainable returns at scale, not when the venture capital market has decided the valuation is maximized. This typically means lower IPO multiples and more modest first-day pops. It also means lower odds of a stock that becomes a cautionary tale within three years.
Founders resist this thinking because they're rewarded for speed. VC incentives favor exits, not longevity. The financial press celebrates IPO announcements as wins, regardless of what happens afterward. There's no glamour in "we stayed private for two extra years and became a 40 billion dollar company that actually trades at reasonable multiples."
But from the perspective of long-term shareholder value, that outcome is superior.
The counterargument always surfaces: stay private too long and you'll miss market windows, lose talent to competitors, and cede market share. These are real concerns. They're also often overstated. Most enduring companies didn't win their markets because they IPO'd six months earlier than competitors. They won because they built better products and stronger unit economics.
The current environment actually favors this patience. Interest rates have normalized. Private funding isn't scarce if you have real traction. Public market appetite for unprofitable growth stories is finally cooling after a decade of excess. Companies that go public from a position of genuine strength rather than from a position of "we need the capital and the timing window is closing" will likely outperform.
So here's what I'd watch: not which startups announce IPO plans, but which ones resist the pressure to do so. Those might be the ones worth believing in long-term.