> The lack of IPOs is unnatural in that sense, as late stage investors always seemed to cash out then. Late-stage speculators, surely? After all, an investor

> The lack of IPOs is unnatural in that sense, as late stage investors always seemed to cash out then. Late-stage speculators, surely? After all, an investor would be invested in the companies success, and would have bought it in order to reap some dividend over the course of many years, right? I don't think this is actually the case, but sometimes I wonder if the rise of private equity marks a return to the pre-modern order of things. The many costs of financial regulation on the public markets have made returning to an older, far less open market. What's sad is that this would imply that regulation has finally killed the golden goose. For millennia it was impossible for the common man to save his pennies and buy a share in the success of some enterprise; for a century or two it was possible; and now ­— what?