This article seems to do a much better job of explaining the trade offs of a direct listing: http://fortune.com/2017/04/07/spotify-ipo-direct-listing/ http://f

This article seems to do a much better job of explaining the trade offs of a direct listing: http://fortune.com/2017/04/07/spotify-ipo-direct-listing/ http://fortune.com/2017/04/07/spotify-ipo-direct-listing/ Apparently the traditional underwritten approach is engineered fairly specifically to aim for that first day "pop" to build excitement about the new stock, and also seems with a lot of publicity which the banks can provide. According to the article, direct listing does seem to be better for employees though: * Spotify would likely issue no new shares (less dilution). * No expensive underwriter necessary. * Existing shareholders won’t have pre-sell any of their shares to new investors, which could mean that they capture more of the upside given that the stock has been purposely underpriced for the pop (and so the new investors capture more). * No lock-up periods for shareholders.