Episode summary
Dylan Jovine | Who Actually Makes Money on an IPO?
Summary
Dylan Jovine argues that the next wave of IPOs, including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, could be a major test of both investor appetite and the overall market. He says recent IPO performance shows how deals are priced and who benefits most: strong first-day gains can mean the company sold too cheaply, while weak launches can mean bankers overvalued the stock for buyers.
He points to recent names such as Circle, CoreWeave, Fervo Energy, Cerebras, and Hawkeye 360 as examples of IPOs that have held up better, while Figma, Chime, StubHub, Klarna, and BigCommerce have lagged. In his view, companies with AI, data-center, or other hot themes tend to attract stronger demand, but the biggest gains usually accrue to investors who bought in early private rounds rather than public market buyers.
Jovine also says the IPO process is deliberately engineered through banker pricing, investor demand checks, and post-deal support. He reads the arrival of major private companies as a bullish signal for the market, arguing that strong companies do not rush to go public unless conditions are favorable.
Key takeaways
- Dylan Jovine says recent IPO outcomes suggest bankers often leave money on the table when a stock quickly doubles or more after listing.
- Dylan Jovine says the biggest winners are usually early private investors, not the public buyers who show up at the IPO.
- Dylan Jovine says Circle is up almost 300% and CoreWeave has risen almost 200%, while Figma, Chime, StubHub, Klarna, and BigCommerce are down.
- Dylan Jovine says AI, data centers, and related infrastructure names are attracting the strongest market interest.
- Dylan Jovine says the presence of SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic in the pipeline suggests the market is still strong.
Notable quotes
“we have SpaceX, obviously, most famously. We also have OpenAI coming. That sounds like it's coming this year”
“if you have an IPO that goes up 1,000% it means the bankers probably didn't do the best service for the company”
“the people that make money on IPOs whether they go up after they go public or they go down after they go public are the people that tend to invest in private rounds really really early”
“I tend not to buy IPOs that have right off the market that have a ton of investor interest because the more investor interest there is the higher the banks”
“you don't bring companies public unless the market looks strong”
How the episode opens
Money, this is Dylan Jovine, here behind the market. Happy Thursday. Today is Thursday, May 28th.
What a great day it is to be alive and here with you folks. We have a lot of IPOs coming out, on deck, on the runway, getting ready for takeoff here. And you know, we have SpaceX, obviously, most famously.
We also have OpenAI coming. That sounds like it's coming this year. We have Anthropic, the maker of Claude, also coming.
We have a lot of companies that are coming. They're going to be absorbing a lot of capital, soaking up a lot of capital. And you know, it's really helpful to go to the tape, or to understand how uh recent IPOs have performed in the past year.
And you know, the performance of an IPO doesn't just tell you about the IPO. It also says something about the bankers. For example, I learned, if you have an IPO that goes up 1,000% it means the bankers probably didn't do the best service for the company.
The company probably could have sold shares at a higher price and got a lot more money. If you have an IPO that goes down after it goes up, it means the bankers probably didn't do a great job for the investors because uh you know, they overpriced it, you know what I mean? So anyway, I'm going to walk through some of history's the last 12 months since going public the start of last year, 2025.
These are selected companies. So, Circle is up almost 300%. CoreWeave, this is the crypto stablecoin issuer, and that company was really priced well.
That tells you more about how that deal was priced cuz crypto's in the doghouse, blah blah blah. Didn't have any real gains. So, it was really priced well.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ipo wave
- ai and tech startups
- ipo pricing and investor appetite
- wall street underwriting
- post-ipo performance
Companies and tickers mentioned
- SpaceX
- OpenAI
- Anthropic
- Circle
- CoreWeave
- Cerebras
- Figma
- Klarna
- Chime
- StubHub
Watch the episode
Watch “Dylan Jovine | Who Actually Makes Money on an IPO?” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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