This is the future of IPOs 💰

Dear Reader,

It’s been a whiplash kind of a year for companies that decided to go public. Hyped unicorns like Uber, Pinterest, and Peloton had dismal IPOs, while WeWork and Hollywood powerhouse Endeavor scuttled their plans altogether. The IPO has long been the holy grail of lucrative exit strategies — did the last year prove that it’s broken?

That’s the question we set out to answer when we conceived of Marker’s “The New Rules of the IPO” special report, which debuted this week. In the six-part series, we explore everything from the brewing tensions between startups and Wall Street, to the hot new alternatives to the IPO and traditional stock exchanges.

In Mike Hoffman’s “The End of the IPO as We Know It,” he goes to the front lines of the IPO revolt, where “a growing chorus of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are deciding that if the IPO market isn’t hospitable to their companies, there must be something wrong with the IPO market.” This vocal group — led by Benchmark Capital’s Bill Gurley — is pushing the direct listing, which allows a company to go public by selling existing shares rather than issuing new shares, and sidestep investment banks altogether.

If you’re running a company, dreaming of running a company, or are an employee of a company hoping to one day go public, you’ll want to take our quiz that…