The New IPO Playbook: Why More Value Creation Is Happening Before Companies Go Public

The IPO is no longer the starting line for a company's growth increasingly, it's the finish line for the biggest gains. In a recent Connect Money interview, KPC Private Funds CEO Dean Rubino explains why so much value creation now happens before a company ever reaches the public markets.

His core argument: companies like OpenAI, SpaceX, and Anthropic are staying private far longer, funded by sovereign wealth funds, private equity, and venture capital at a scale once reserved for public listings. By the time they IPO, much of the value has already been created leaving public investors with less upside and what Rubino calls a smaller "margin for error."

"The lesson is not that every pre-IPO company is attractive. It is the opposite. Investors need to be more selective, because late-stage private companies may already be priced like winners."

Rubino sees this as a structural shift in private markets, not a passing trend, reinforced by secondary markets that give early investors liquidity without going public. The takeaway: investors need to be more selective, not just earlier.