Absolutely: A major one is that you can skirt all kinds of financial disclosure laws that apply to public companies. The world doesn't get to know your volume,

Absolutely: A major one is that you can skirt all kinds of financial disclosure laws that apply to public companies. The world doesn't get to know your volume, your profit margin, or which of your divisions makes most if its money. This means your competition has a lot more trouble competing with you than if you have to provide public quarterly statements. I have seen examples of well run companies that just happened to be private, and then see industry reports that made hilariously wrong guesses regarding those key metrics that the competition would love to know. At the same time, it's far harder to provide great compensation to your employees if they can't sell their shares in the market, and at some point, your investors might be screaming for liquidity. But staying private as long as you can get away with is a good idea: It's just that few companies planning to be huge can.