Companies go public for all sorts of reasons. Facebook went public because it was almost being forced to by the SEC because of its size. Microsoft went public s

Companies go public for all sorts of reasons. Facebook went public because it was almost being forced to by the SEC because of its size. Microsoft went public simply because other employees who were mega-rich like Gates wanted to cash out...stock is up 132,000% since the IPO. Hermes went public because of family in-fighting...stock is up 11,430% since its IPO in 1993. Amazon is a good example because they aren't hostage to the capital markets...they are not consumers of capital, though their reported profits are pathetic in comparison to their market cap. Bezos hasn't gone on an earnings call in...I don't know, maybe forever. When your business doesn't need to raise money, you have a license to run it like a private company. The vast majority don't, but there are reasons for that, too.