[using a throwaway so I can say this] It always bugs me when I hear someone who I know knows better use a line like: "Just do it legally, for Pete's sake! Go

[using a throwaway so I can say this] It always bugs me when I hear someone who I know knows better use a line like: "Just do it legally, for Pete's sake! Go to the SEC" -- as though this was a matter of dropping a postcard in the mail. I'm confident that these writers know better. The real situation -- as you can see in any of the stories about Blue Bottle's non-IPO, Hedosophia, etc -- is that "just do it legally" is rapidly approaching the regulatory singularity of "just get the NRC to license your new nuclear reactor design." Even for multibillion-dollar companies, "just do it legally" is becoming prohibitively costly. Compare to the 1990s, when sub-100M IPOs were not that weird. This has enabled VCs to earn enormous monopoly fees, originally as gatekeepers to the IPO process, now as gatekeepers to a gigantic secondary market in "unicorns." Lambos all around. As in taxi medallions, this bottleneck creates immense profits. Naturally, the spectacle of Uber versus the taxi mafia, or ICOs versus the VC mafia, creates a lot of passions. Especially among those with axes to grind. There is one big difference: Uber provides a consistently excellent transportation experience. Whereas most ICOs are straight-out terrible. Let's hope that the sheep get separated from the goats, as fast as possible. [/end imprudently-frank throwaway]