当巨头不上市：揭秘5万亿美元的私人科技市场

如果你真的想投资于最具增长潜力、最有前景的公司，这些公司有可能成为下一个‘七巨头’，那么它们很可能存在于私募市场中。

If you actually want to invest in the highest growth, most promising companies that could be that next mag seven, chances are they're in the private markets.

你知道，AI方面，首先我认为这些公司有潜力成为有史以来最优秀的企业之一。

You know, AI, first of all, I think these have the potential to be some of the best businesses ever created.

它们由非凡的创始人领导。

They're run by exceptional founders.

它们正在打造产品，这些产品的增长速度是我们前所未见的。

They're building products that have grown at rates that we've never ever seen before.

所以，它们实际上是在加速公司成长的整个过程。

So, you know, they're kind of speed running the process of company growth.

模型的改进速度惊人。

Models are improving at a, like, eye popping rate.

你知道，它们基本上能在六到七个月内将完成长任务的能力翻倍。

You know, they can basically double their ability to complete long form tasks over six to seven months.

因此，如果你现在就停止模型的发展，我认为我们有机会在其基础上构建出十年到二十年内都非常有趣的应用。

And so, you know, if you were to just arrest model development today, I think we would have the chance to build ten to twenty years of really interesting applications on top of it.

如今，高估值的私营科技公司市值约为5万亿美元，几乎占标普500指数的四分之一。

Highly valued private tech companies now represent about 5,000,000,000,000 in market cap, almost a quarter of the S and P 500.

十年前，顶级科技公司创造的市值中有88%是在上市后实现的。

Ten years ago, 88% of market cap creation for the best tech companies happened after they went public.

对于最近一批上市的公司，有55%的市值是在仍为私营阶段时创造的。

For the recent crop of IPOs, 55% happened while they were still private.

大卫·乔治是a16z的增长基金负责人。

David George runs the growth fund at a16z.

这段对话此前曾在彭博社的《Odd Lots》播客中播出，探讨了公司为何推迟上市、SPV问题、传统软件为何被碾压，以及基于成果的定价模式如何成为终结现有巨头的业务模式变革。

This conversation, previously aired on Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast, covers why companies stay private longer, the SPV problem, why legacy software is getting crushed, and why outcome based pricing could be the business model shift that finishes off incumbents.

彭博社《Odd Lots》节目主持人乔·魏森塔尔和特蕾西·阿洛韦与a16z的普通合伙人大卫·乔治进行了对话。

Bloomberg's Odd Lots hosts, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, speak with David George, general partner at a16z.

大家好，欢迎收听《Odd Lots》播客的又一期节目。

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.

我是乔·魏森塔尔。

I'm Joe Weisenthal.

我是特蕾西·阿洛韦。

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

特蕾西，感觉2026年可能会成为一些长期未上市的巨型公司进行IPO的重要年份。

Tracy, it feels like 2026 could be a big year for some mega IPOs that have been private for a while.

据说可能会有SpaceX的IPO，还有像一些大型AI实验室这样的公司，可能很快就会登陆市场，都是相当庞大的企业。

There's talk about a SpaceX IPO possibly, maybe some of the big AI labs, like some pretty massive companies that might be hitting the market soon.

最近有人送了我一顶摩根大通的Facebook上市纪念帽，那时他们参与了这个项目，我非常自豪。

Someone recently gave me a Facebook IPO hat from JPMorgan I'm when they worked on very proud.

我该开始在办公室戴这顶帽子了。

I need to start wearing it around the office.

是的。

Yeah.

我

I

记得。

remember.

但那是一次巨大的IPO

But that was a mega IPO

而且在

And at the

当时关于它有很多炒作和技术问题。

there was so much hype about it and technical difficulties.

有太多人渴望参与这次IPO。

So many people eager to get in on that one.

很多人因为技术问题称它为失败，我想，因为一开始表现并不太好。

It's so many funny people called that a flop, I guess, because of the technical difficulties, and it didn't do that great for a little bit.

那本是一个绝佳的买入时机

That would have been a great time to

买入它。

buy it.

认真的。

Seriously.

关于市场，其中一个有趣的现象是，有些公司在已经变得极其庞大时才进行首次公开募股。

Interesting thing about the market, or one of the interesting things about the market, is you have these companies that are going to IPO when they're already gigantic.

人们指出，在早期时代，企业可能在估值达到十亿美元时就上市，而现在它们却已经是八角兽级别的公司了。

People point out that in earlier eras they might have IPO ed when they're billion dollar companies, and now they're like octicorns or whatever.

还有其他一些公司同样规模庞大，但目前还不清楚它们是否会上市。我看到一则新闻说，Stripe 可能会筹集更多资金。

Then you have other companies that are also enormous, and it's not clear that they're going to IPO at I saw a headline about Stripe perhaps raising more money.

它们其实早在几年前就可以上市了。

They could have probably IPO ed years ago.

我有一个疑问：公司是选择不上市，还是推迟上市，因为公开市场不够吸引人，还是因为私人市场变得更为富裕、流动性更强，以至于企业上市的冲动已不像上一代那样强烈了？

One of the questions I have is, are companies choosing not to IPO or delaying IPO because the public market is not that fun, or because the private market has gotten so much richer, so much more liquid, etcetera, that impulse to go public just isn't the same way as it might have been in the different generation.

是的。

Yeah.

这一直是市场中一个长期存在的问题。

This has kind of been a long running question in the market for a while now.

但我想就最后一点指出，尽管这些公司处于私人市场，理论上资本池较小，但它们似乎总是在不断融资。

But one thing I would just point out on the last point, it feels to me like companies in the private market, even though they're in the private market where presumably the pool of capital is smaller, it feels like they're always fundraising.

这是另一个

This is the other

方面。

thing too.

当我刚开始报道科技公司时，通常是A轮、B轮和C轮融资。

It used to be when I started covering tech companies, was like your Series A round and Series B round and C.

但现在看起来就像一场永无止境的融资，尤其是某些人工智能公司。

Now it just seems like this permanent round, especially with some of the AI companies.

一直在融资。

Always be raising.

持续融资。

Always raising.

无论如何，我们需要更深入地了解大型公司是如何思考公开和私人资本市场的。

Anyway, we need to learn more about how giant companies are thinking about capital markets, both public and private.

我很兴奋地告诉大家，我们确实请到了完美的嘉宾。

I'm really excited to say we do in fact absolutely have the perfect guest.

我们将与大卫·乔治对话。

We're going be speaking with David George.

他是a16z（Andreessen Horowitz）的增长负责人，非常适合解释当前发生的一切。

He is the head of growth at Andreessen Horowitz a16z, someone perfectly situated to explain all these things that's going on.

大卫，非常感谢你做客《Odd Lots》。

David, thank you so much for coming on Odd Lots.

嘿。

Hey.

很高兴能和大家交流。

Great to be with you all.

什么是增长？

What is growth?

我以为所有风投都是增长型投资。

I thought all VC was growth.

当我们谈论私募市场中的增长或增长轮时，这到底意味着什么？

What does it mean when we talk about growth or growth round when we're talking about private markets?

是的

Yeah.

首先，能和大家在一起真是太好了。

So our first of all, it's great to be with you all.

谢谢你们邀请我。

Thanks for having me.

很期待这次对话。

Excited to have this conversation.

我们也会投资那些快速增长的早期公司。

So our early stage invest in companies that are growing fast too.

所以如果这一点还不清楚，那就是我们在所有a16z基金中所追求的目标。

So if that's not clear, that is what we seek to do across all bulls capital.

对我们而言，成长型投资是指投资处于生命周期后期阶段的公司。

For us, growth investing companies at the later stage of their life cycle.

通常来说，一旦它们找到了产品市场契合点，我们就会进行投资；而早期投资则是在它们还在努力寻找产品市场契合点时进行的，我们则是在公司已经找到产品市场契合点后才进行投资。

So typically, once they found product market fit, and our early stage investing companies early stage when they're kind of trying to find product market fit, we invest in companies once they have found product market fit.

这就是两者的区别。

So that's the delineation.

那么，有多少增长是直接来自早期阶段的呢？

Well, what percentage of growth is sort of directly obtained from the early stage?

因为我觉得这对你们来说是个不错的项目来源。

Because because I imagine that's a good pipeline for you guys.

对吧？

Right?

是的。

Yeah.

这对我们的项目来源非常好。

It's a great pipeline for us.

我们两者都做。

We do both.

所以我们有一些投资案例，来自早期阶段，也有一些公司，我们并非它们的早期投资者。

So we have examples of investments out of the early stage and in companies that for whatever reason, you were not early stage investors.

我们一些最大的成长型投资是像Databricks和Stripe这样的公司，我们曾是它们的早期投资者。

So some of our largest investments in growth are companies like Databricks and Stripe that we were early stage investors in.

而另一些最大的投资则是像SpaceX、OpenAI、Waymo、Roblox和Figma这样的公司，我们并非它们的早期投资者。

And then some of the largest investments are companies like SpaceX and OpenAI and Waymo and Roblox and Figma that we were not early stage investors in.

我们第一次投资是在成长阶段。

And the first time that we invested was in growth.

所以大约是五五开。

So it's about fifty fifty.

我们喜欢投资那些我们非常了解创始人的公司。

We love to invest in companies where we know the founders really well.

我们经常谈论的一个话题是比赛录像。

One of the things we talk about all the time is game film.

这是公开市场投资者非常熟悉的东西。

This is something that public market investors are very familiar with.

他们会寻找比赛录像。

They look for game film.

他们希望支持那些展现出持续成功能力的首席执行官和管理团队，我们在私募市场中也寻求这样做。

They wanna back CEOs, management teams that have demonstrated continued success, and and we seek to do the same thing in the private markets.

如果你随便列出一堆最重要的、快速增长的科技公司，它们实际上只是恰好在我提到SpaceX、Databricks、Stripe等时被想到的而已——我并没有刻意列举a16z投资组合里的公司。

If you just name a bunch of random big companies that are all sort of, like, the most important, like, growing tech companies, they're actually just Like going to all when I said SpaceX, Databricks, Stripe, etcetera, I didn't purposely try to name a bunch of a16z family companies.

它们只是碰巧出现在我脑海里。

They just incidentally happened to me.

让我们从宏观角度开始探讨这个问题：为什么公司越来越长时间地保持私有状态，尤其是那些表现优异、本可上市但选择在生命周期后期才考虑IPO的公司。

Let's start big picture with this question of companies staying private for longer, especially thriving companies, companies that are doing very well, IPO ing, if at all, much later in their life cycle.

其中有很多具体问题，但宏观来看，背后的故事是什么？

There are lot of specific questions, but big picture, what's the story?

这种趋势演变的主要原因是什么？

What's the main cause of this, the evolution of this trend?

是的，完全正确。

Yeah, absolutely.

首先，我想先用实际数据来铺垫一下背景。

Well, first, I would love to just set the stage with what the data actually is.

到底发生了什么？

Like, what's actually happened?

我完全错了，这也很有趣。

I'm totally wrong, that's also interesting.

不，不，你并没有完全错。

No, no, you're not totally wrong.

我有一些支持你观点的证据，但这些数字确实惊人。

I have a bunch of supporting facts to your statement, but the numbers are pretty eye popping.

如果你看一下私募市场，高估值的科技公司市值约为5万亿美元，哇。

So if you look at the private markets, highly valued technology companies represent about $5,000,000,000,000 of market cap Wow.

在私募市场中。

In the private markets.

这几乎占标普500指数的四分之一。

That's almost a quarter of the S and P 500.

哇。

Wow.

这占纳斯达克的15%。

It's 15% of the Nasdaq.

如果你排除七巨头，这个比例达到40%。

It's 40% if you exclude the Mag seven.

这些数字真是惊人。

So it's just staggering numbers.

关于世界上一些最大、最优秀的企业都在私募市场，前十大的私营公司占据了这5万亿美元市值的40%。

To your point about some of the biggest and best companies in the world being in the private markets, the 10 largest private companies represent 40% of that 5,000,000,000,000 of market cap.

这完全是一场巨大的幂律游戏，而处于生命周期这一阶段的最顶尖公司恰好都在私募市场，而不是公开市场。

So this is a massive power law game, and the best of the best companies at that stage of their life cycle just happened to be in the private markets and not in the public markets right now.

这5万亿美元的私募市场规模，在十年间增长了十倍。

That private market kind of 5,000,000,000,000 of market cap, that sector of the economy has grown 10x in ten years.

与此同时，上市公司数量——你们可能之前也提到过——在过去二十年里减少了一半。

At the same time, the number of public companies, you guys have probably covered this before, the number of public companies had been cut in half over the last twenty years.

所以，公开市场和私募市场的构成正在发生巨大的转变。

So this is just a massive shift in the composition of the public markets and the private markets.

正如你所说，最顶尖的公司如今大多都位于私募市场。

And the best of the best companies, as you said, largely are sitting in the private markets today.

我们关注的另一点是增长，而‘增长’这个词包含很多含义，我们寻找的是处于超高速增长阶段的公司。

The other thing that we look for, where growth with growth means a lot of things, we look for companies that are growing sort of hyper growth.

我们称之为超高速增长，即发展得非常非常快。

We call it hyper growth, growing very, very fast.

如果你看一下今天的公开市场，在我们的研究范围内，只有三家公司增长率超过30%。

If you look at the public markets today, there's only three companies in our universe that are growing over 30%.

所以，如果你想投资那些最具增长潜力、可能成为下一个‘七巨头’的公司，它们很可能位于私募市场。

So if you actually want to invest in the highest growth, most promising companies that could be that next mag seven, chances are they're in the private market.

这仅仅是市场动态的巨大转变，你知道，尤其是在过去二十年，甚至过去十年或十五年。

So this is just a big shift in the dynamics, you know, certainly in the last twenty years, but even the last ten or fifteen.

这就是支撑这一趋势背后的数字。

So that's the numbers behind the trend.

问题是，为什么会这样？

The question is why?

而且，你知道，这种情况背后有很多原因。

And, you know, there's there's lots of reasons why this is the case.

当你一开始提到这一点时，公共市场存在一些结构性因素，使得如今成为一家上市公司比二十年前更困难。

When you mentioned it right at the outset, there are structural reasons in the public markets that make it harder to be a public company now than it was twenty years ago.

我认为最重要的是，私人资本市场比以往更深、流动性更强。

I think the biggest thing is the private capital markets are deeper and more liquid than before.

因此，公司除非需要巨额资金，否则没有必要急于上市。

So there's less of a need for a company to go public until they need much, much, much, much more capital.

对于最顶尖的公司来说，在私人市场中他们基本能获得所需的资金。

In the private markets for the best of the best companies, they kinda have the access to the capital that they need.

对于创始人来说，能够留在私人市场并逐步实现流动性，这是一个非常有吸引力的选择。

It's a pretty compelling pitch for the founder to be able to stay in the private markets, have liquidity over time.

如果你是少数能在私人市场以低成本获得资金的公司之一，你就可以相对稳定地控制股价走势，并定期进行股权回购。

If you're one of a select few that can access capital, you know, in the private markets cheaply, you can kind of steadily control the stock price movements, you can regularly run tender offers.

而且，你知道，对公司而言，除了资金获取之外，最难的事情莫过于员工管理。

And, you know, for a company, probably the hardest thing aside from access to capital is employee management.

如果你能在没有波动的情况下，接近公开市场所具有的动态，那么留在私募市场就非常有吸引力。

And if you can get pretty close to the dynamics that you get in the public markets without volatility, it's pretty compelling to remain in the private markets.

我有一些关于私募资本增长的问题。

So I have a bunch of questions on just the growth of private capital.

但在那之前，你提到上市存在结构性挑战。

But before we get to that, you said there are structural challenges in going public.

我想我们常听到的是，哦，你得提交季度报告。

I guess the one we always hear is like, Oh, you have to file quarterly paperwork.

不是那些文件本身，我其实能理解，因为我也不喜欢填表格之类的事情。

Not the paperwork, which I actually sympathize with because I hate filling out forms and things like that.

但为什么公众普遍认为公开市场比私募市场困难得多，或者说是更大的运营负担呢？

But like, what are the reasons that the public market is perceived to be so much more difficult or so much more of a operational headache, I guess, than private?

确实是有成本的。

Well, there is a cost.

所以，对于像SpaceX、Databricks、OpenAir或Stripe这样的公司来说，这并不算特别显著。

So, you know, for a company the size of SpaceX or or Databricks or OpenAir or Stripe, you know, it's not hugely meaningful.

但对于一家较小的公司来说，这可能高达一千万到两千万美元。

But for a smaller company, you know, it could be 10 to $20,000,000.

如果你是一家十五年前就会上市的公司，比如在成立五年后实现一亿美元营收，那这笔费用就相当可观了。

And, you know, if you're a company that would have gone public fifteen years ago, you know, five years into your life doing a $100,000,000 of revenue, that's pretty meaningful.

这可是重大的变化。

Like, that's a major change.

所以你会希望再等久一点。

And so you'll want to wait longer.

如今，公开市场、投资者、投行和研究机构都更倾向于大型公司，至少是中型公司，而对小型公司则关注较少。

Public markets, investors, investment banks, research organizations are tilted much more toward large cap companies or at least mid sized companies today and less so towards small cap.

因此，如果你是一家小型公司，要吸引投资者的注意就非常困难。

So if you're a small cap company, it's just very hard to get the attention of investors.

他们无法开出大额支票，也无法建立大量持仓，投行和研究分析师花时间覆盖你可能也得不偿失。

They can't write very large checks and build huge positions in It may not be worth the investment bank's time or the research analyst time to cover you.

如果是这样，你就很难吸引到优质投资者，也难以让股价随着时间增长。

And so if that's the case, it's hard to get the attention of good investors and make your stock price grow over time.

所以这些是结构性挑战的几个例子。

So those are a couple examples of the structural challenges.

另一个是波动性。

The other one is just volatility.

你知道，这一代创业者经历了2021年的飙升，随后科技市场确实出现了2022年和2023年的下跌。

You know, this generation of founders has seen the 2021 run up and then the certainly in the technology market and and then the fall off in '22 and '23.

其中一些人已经在私募市场调整了股价。

And some of them have reset their stock prices in the private markets.

但那是一个波动剧烈的时期。

But that was a volatile time.

比如，如果你在高峰期向员工发行股票，而员工看着自己的股票期权说：天哪，这些股票跌了70%。

Like if you were issuing stock to an employee at the peak, and then, you know, that employee was looking at their stock grants and saying, oh my gosh, these are down 70%.

我的薪酬一下子被砍了70%。

Like my comp just got cut by 70%.

这对创始人来说是一个很难应对的局面。

That's a hard dynamic for a founder to have to deal with.

如果你作为一名创始人，能够减少私人市场中的一些波动，我理解你为什么这么做。

And if you can minimize some of that volatility in the private markets as a founder, I understand why you would do it.

跟我们谈谈员工留存和员工管理。

Talk to us about employee retention, employee management.

员工们喜欢IPO。

Employees, they love an IPO.

他们喜欢流动性，现在你们可以通过善意收购让员工将部分股票出售给新投资者。

They love liquidity, and okay, now you can have tender offers where they sell some of their stock to new investors.

此外还有其他动态，因为现在有大量SPV，甚至可能通过代币，让某人在Hyper Liquid之类的平台上对私人市场的持股进行对冲。

Then there's other dynamics too, because there's all the SPVs out there and maybe tokens where someone can hedge their holdings in a private market on hyper liquid or something like that.

跟我们聊聊，如今私人公司的员工现在有如此多的选择来实现流动性，从而真正拿到一些真金白银？

Talk to us a little bit about the plethora of options that employees have now in private companies and getting that liquidity, and so they actually get some real money?

让我先解释一下公开市场是如何运作的，然后我们可以将私人市场与之对比。

Let me start by just explaining the way it works in the public markets, and we can contrast the private markets with that.

如果你是公开市场的员工，并且拥有RSU股权激励，大致就是这样运作的。

If you're a public market employee and you have RSU grants, this is basically the way it works.

每个季度，你的账户会收到扣除税款后的净股票入账。

You get a quarterly deposit of net stock, net of taxes in your account every quarter.

因此，如果你是Meta、Alphabet或Apple的高薪员工，这就像时钟一样准时。

And so if you're a highly paid employee at Meta or Alphabet or Apple, it's like clockwork.

这些股权激励会进入你的账户，对于最高薪的员工来说，每个季度都会有数十万甚至数百万美元到账，而且这些资金是流动的。

You get these grants, they hit your account, you have for some of the highest paid people, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars that hit your hit your account every quarter, and that's liquid.

这些金额已经扣除了税款。

It's already netted of tax.

所以你可以立即卖出，相当于现金薪酬。

So you can turn around and sell it, it's like cash comp.

而对于这些公司来说，过去十年里它们的股价已经大幅上涨。

Or in the case of those companies, they've appreciated tremendously in value over the last ten years.

因此，那些通过持股为公司做出贡献的员工都得到了丰厚的回报。

And so the employees, you know, who help with stock have been handsomely rewarded.

此外，他们还会不断获得新的RSU股权激励。

Then they get RSU grants stacked on top of those.

所以你随着时间的推移，会有一系列的RSU激励逐步释放，而且随着时间推移，你的季度净入账金额往往会不断增加。

So you kind of have this like waterfall of RSU grants over time, and increasingly, you know, over time your quarterly net deposit can go up.

因此，如果你是一位私营企业的CEO，想要吸引人才，你就要和这种待遇竞争。

And so if you're a private CEO competing for talent, that's what you're competing with.

是的。

Right.

这些公司现金流充裕，因此能够向员工提供大量以股票形式的薪酬，这种竞争态势很难抗衡。

And those companies are flushed with cash, and so they're able to pay a lot in stock based comp to their employees, and so that's a difficult dynamic to compete with.

这是说服私营企业CEO选择上市的最强有力论据之一，因为在公开市场环境下，员工能获得非常诱人的财务回报。

That's one of the strongest forms of the argument for telling a private company CEO that they should go public because that is a very compelling financial reward for your employees in that public market situation.

在私募市场中，通常的情况是你获得这些RSU激励。

In the private markets, the way it typically works is you get, you know, you get these RSU grants.

有时它们会随着时间累积，但通常在公司上市前都是无法变现的。

Sometimes they stack up over time, but generally they're illiquid until you go public.

过去六到八年里，出现了一种新情况：一些公司在私募市场中进行收购要约，主动提出以一定价格收购员工已归属的股票。

Now what's happened over the last, I'd say six or eight years is companies will do tender offers in private markets where they offer to buy a certain percentage of employees vested stock in the private markets.

所以他们会设定价格，与我们这样的机构合作，然后说：‘你可以在这次私募要约中出售你所持25%的已归属股票，我们每年会进行一次。’

So they'll set the price, they'll work with somebody like us, and they'll say something like, Hey, you can sell 25% of your vested stock that you have in this tender offer, and, you know, we'll do it once a year.

因此，这在一定程度上替代了我在公开市场所描述的情况。

And so that's a decent substitute for what I described in the public markets.

这并不是完美的替代方案，但对于那些真正相信公司前景的员工或潜在新员工来说，我认为这足以应对公开市场的RSU激励机制。

It's not a perfect substitute, but for, you know, the employees or potential new hires who are true believers, I think it's enough to combat that RSU public market dynamic and compensation scheme.

而且，这效果相当不错。

And, you know, it's worked pretty well.

SpaceX 就非常出色地每年两次为员工开展私募要约。

SpaceX has, you know, famously done a really good job running twice a year tender offers for their employees.

他们因此获得了极高的员工满意度、招聘和留任能力等等。

And, you know, they've had tremendous employee satisfaction, ability to hire retention, etcetera.

一些最大的科技公司也纷纷效仿。

And some of the biggest tech companies have followed suit.

我认为，私营市场的创始人其实是在做出一种权衡：如果他们上市，股价可能会更高。

And I would argue that there's a trade off that the founders in the private markets are making, where often if they were public, they probably would have a higher stock price.

所以他们可能承受了更多的股权稀释。

So maybe they're taking a little bit more dilution.

因此，员工在公开市场中的估值可能受益更多，但差距并不大，这是一个相当有吸引力的替代方案。

And so maybe employees would benefit a little bit more in valuation in the public markets, but it's not a massive gap, and it's a it's a pretty compelling alternative.

在旧金山的文化氛围中，人们是否仍然默认认为退出方式应该是IPO，还是这种观念已经逐渐消失了？

Just culturally out in San Francisco, do people still expect like the default exit to be an IPO or has that mindset kind of gone away?

最顶尖的公司都希望上市。

The best of the best companies want to IPO.

我想你提到了一些可能会长期保持私有状态的知名公司。

And I think you mentioned some of the the big name companies out there who may stay private for a really long time.

我认为，大多数创始人的野心仍然是希望上市，成为一家大型、成熟且重要的公众公司。

You know, I think the ambition for most founders is still, you know, to have an IPO and to be a large established important public company.

我们之前讨论过私人资本池在过去十年中的增长。

You know, we talked about the pools of private capital and how they've grown over the last ten years.

公开市场的资本池仍然要深得多。

The pools of capital in the public markets are still much deeper.

所以，如果你需要融资500亿、1000亿美元，就像一些大型公司为了实现目标可能想要做的那样，它们很可能会进入公开市场。

So if you need to raise $50,102 $100,000,000,000, like some of the big big companies may want to do to pursue some of their goals, chances are they'll end up in the public markets.

我们之所以想进行这场对话，部分原因是在几个月前，我采访了Perplexity的首席执行官，他谈到了SPV的兴起以及拒绝资金的态度。

Part of the reason we wanted to have this conversation, a few months ago, and I interviewed the Perplexity CEO, and he was talking about the rise of SPVs and wanting to say no to money.

人们带着投资机会来找他，但很明显，他们只是想以某种方式打包这些股权，创造出一种二级金融工具。

People come to him with investment opportunities, and then it's clear that they just want to package up that equity in some way and create a secondary instrument.

你知道吗？

You know what?

最近有人给我发消息，说可以给我一些Anthropic的Pre-IPO股份。

Someone messaged me recently, they're like, I could get you some pre IPO anthropic shares.

我说：不，我不做这种事。

I'm like, No, I don't do that.

但我知道这背后有大量兴趣。

But I know that there's a lot of interest in there.

你提到，如果你真的想在这个规模上实现巨大增长，那么唯一能快速增长的只有私营公司。

You mentioned that if you really want massive growth at this level, that the only ones that are growing super big are the private companies.

跟我们谈谈SPV和这些第三方实体的兴起吧，你甚至都不知道谁在你的股东名册上，以及创始人是如何看待这一现象的。

Talk to us about the emergence of SPVs and these third party entities, and you don't even know who's on your cap table, and how founders are thinking about this phenomenon.

我认为大多数创始人其实并不喜欢这样。

I think founders, for the most part, really don't like it.

好的。

Okay.

因为他们希望知道自己股东名册上都有谁。

Because they they want to know who is on their cap table.

而且有一些类型的投资者会来找创始人，误导他们，我认为，关于资金来源的工具或实际资金来源。

And there are certain types of investors who will come to the founders and misrepresent, I think, what what vehicle or or where the capital is actually gonna come from.

在我们这里，我们不做这些。

In our case, we don't do those.

我们做的是直接从我们的基金进行投资。

What what we do is we invest directly out of our funds.

当然。

Sure.

我们知道，我们向创始人强调这一点：你们清楚自己到底得到了什么。

You know, we we make that a point of pride with the founders to say, hey, you know exactly what you're getting.

我们会坦诚相待。

We're gonna shoot you straight.

对于SPV行业来说，你知道，行情好的时候它没问题，但行情差的时候就会变得非常糟糕，而Role是我们的一家公司。

For the SPV industry, you know, look, it works when, you know, times are good, and it can be horrendous and bad, you know, when when times are bad, you know, androle is one of our companies.

哦，是的，

Oh, yeah,

我们和他们关系非常密切。

very close with.

我们是他们最大的投资者之一。

We're one of the largest investors.

他们曾公开与一些试图通过隐蔽方式筹集资金的SPV骗子开战。

And they have famously, you know, gone to war with some of the SPV hucksters who are trying to assemble capital to do a deal through some obfuscated way around them.

他们说，我们想要清楚地知道谁在我们的股东名册上。

And they said, look, we wanna know exactly who's on our cap table.

你知道，我们希望确保自己对股东负责。

You know, we want to make sure that we're doing right by our shareholders.

所以这是一种有风险的操作。

And so it's a risky maneuver.

当然，并不是说所有这类情况都不好，但我们尽量避免，并建议创始人尽可能远离这种做法。

You know, it's not to say that there's not some that are good, but we try to avoid it and we try to counsel our founders to stay away from it as much as possible.

你提到了Anderol，创始人能完全将他们排除在外吗？

So you mentioned Anderol, and can founders completely lock them out?

或者，当创始人不希望这些工具获得他们的股权时，为什么它们还是能进入呢？

Or how does it work such that the founder doesn't wanna have these vehicles get access to their equity, and yet somehow they do anyway?

这些实体是通过什么途径进入公司的？

What is the path into the company that these entities are taking?

举个例子，一个基金找到创始人说，是的，我们将通过这个基金进行投资。

The example would be a fund shows up to the founder and says, yeah, we're gonna invest out of this fund.

它们会用某个法律实体名称作为基金的名称。

And they have some legal entity name that they have as the fund.

而创始人往往并不清楚，这个法律实体实际上只是由一群仅投资于该单一工具的新投资者组成的集合。

And then it's not fully clear to the founder that that legal entity actually will just be an assembly of a bunch of new investors that are only investing in that single vehicle.

我想说，SPV带来的风险是另一个额外的风险。

I would say the SPV interest is one other, you know, sort of additional risk that comes with it.

我们的大型投资者，也就是我们的有限合伙人，是全球最大的一些机构。

You know, our large investors, our LPs, they're some of the largest institutions in the world.

他们信任我们进行投资，并且实际上很欣赏他们所投资的基金具有一定程度的多元化。

They trust us to make investments, and they actually like the fact that they're investing in a fund that has some degree of diversification.

是的。

Yeah.

SPV本质上是高风险的，因为它们只投资于单一公司。

SPVs are inherently risky because they're single company.

因此，如果这家公司表现不佳，而你投资的是a16z，你还能东山再起，因为我们还有其他多家公司。

And so, you know, if that company happens to not go well and you invest in a16z, you can live to fight another day because we have a number of other companies.

如果你把大量资金投入其中，后果可能会非常严重。

You know, it could be devastating if you put a large amount of capital into it.

谈谈定价吧，因为人们常听到的说法是，如果你进入私募市场，确实有一些优势。

Talk to us a little bit about pricing because something you tend to hear is that, well, if you go to the private market, there are some benefits to that.

但另一方面，你可能得支付更高的资本成本。

But on the other hand, you're probably gonna pay, you know, little bit more in terms of cost of capital.

另外一种说法是，如果所有资产都是私有的，它们的估值频率就不像公开市场那样高。

And then the other thing you hear is that, well, if everything is private, it's not necessarily being marked to market as often as the public market.

因此，可能会对定价产生一些担忧。

So maybe there's some concern around pricing.

你得不到群体智慧的效果。

You're not getting that wisdom of the crowds effect.

你只是看到一群科技从业者投资于其他科技从业者，这可能会形成一种自我强化的循环。

You're just getting a bunch of tech bros investing in tech bros, and that can kind of be a self reinforcing cycle.

是的。

Yeah.

说实话，我只能就我们自己所从事的业务发表看法。

Look, I I can only speak to our own business that we're in.

一个有趣的数据显示。

Interesting data point.

如果你看一下私人市场中资金产生的回报，从历史上看，在过去大约七年的良好IPO期间，约50%的IPO收益来自种子轮到B轮，另外50%的收益来自C轮及之后的融资。

If you look at the returns generated by dollars in the private markets, historically, over the last, call it like seven years of good IPOs, about 50% of the dollars of gain in an IPO come from the seed through series B, and then 50% of the dollars of gain come from the series C and later.

随着公司保持私有状态的时间变长，这一比例将大幅向C轮及之后阶段倾斜，而C轮到B轮阶段所占的收益比例会变小。

As companies have stayed private longer, that will massively shift to the series c and later, and the c through b will be, you know, a smaller proportion of the dollars of gain.

同样，如果你回溯十年前，看看当时所有上市的公司，这其中存在一点时间滞后，所以请稍等一下。

Similarly, if you go back ten years and you look at all the companies that have gone public, there's a little bit of, like, time lag in this, so just just bear with me.

十年前上市的最优秀公司，其整体回报的88%来自公开市场。

The best companies that were going public ten years ago generated 88% of their overall dollars of return in the public markets.

所以，如果只看总市值创造，仅有12%发生在私人市场。

So if you just took total market cap creation, only 12% of it was happening in the private markets.

如果你看一下最近五年上市的公司，它们55%的市值创造发生在私人市场。

If you look at the recent crop of IPOs in the last five years, 55% of their market cap creation happened in the private markets.

哇。

Wow.

45%发生在公开市场。

45% happened in the public markets.

因此，价值创造发生的位置发生了巨大变化。

So there is a massive shift that's taken place in terms of where value creation happens.

这对我们有利。

That's benefited us.

在定价方面，我们投资了一组优秀的公司。

In terms of pricing, we've invested in a portfolio of of great companies.

我列出了我们的一些投资。

I've listed all the some of our investments.

我们最大的一些投资包括Databricks、SpaceX、Waymo、OpenAI、Ansys，还有Stripe、Flock Safety等公司。

Some of our biggest investments are companies like Databricks and SpaceX and Waymo and OpenAI and Andoril, you know, and Stripe and Flock Safety and and and companies like that.

我知道收入倍数等方法存在缺陷。

Now, I recognize there are flaws with revenue multiples and all that.

但我想说，如果能让我整个职业生涯都投资于市场领先的优秀科技公司，以21倍收入的价格买入，而它们的增长率达到100%，那将是一个极其出色的交易或投资机会。

But I would say if you could let me have a career, an entire career of investing in market leading great technology companies, where we could buy them at 21 times revenue and they're growing a 100%, that would be an incredible trade or incredible investment opportunity.

因此，在估值方面，我觉得私募市场存在一定的折价。

And so in terms of valuations, I feel like there is a discount to being in the private markets.

而且，我认为创始人在很大程度上也理解这一点，并做出了这种权衡。

And, you know, founders, I think, understand that for the most part and make that trade off.

但这确实是我们观察到的一种动态。

But it's definitely a dynamic that we see.

我还想再指出一件事。

There's one more thing that I would call out.

我之前提到过，在我们的研究范围和公开市场中，只有三家公司实际增长率超过30%。

You know, I mentioned earlier that only three companies in our universe and the public markets are actually growing greater than 30%.

这里存在一种现象：我认为公开市场的投资者要维持极高的增长率确实很困难。

There is a dynamic where I do think it's hard for public market investors even to rock really, really high growth rates.

所以，如果你的增长率达到60%，公开市场的投资者很可能会构建一个财务模型，假设你的增长率会依次降至60%、50%、40%、30%、20%，然后据此对你进行估值。

So if you're growing like 60%, I think automatically a public market investor is gonna build a financial model that says sixty, fifty, forty, thirty, 20%, And then they're gonna value you as such.

接着，他们会设定第五年的退出倍数，并将这个倍数应用到20%的增长率上。

And then they'll pick an exit multiple at year five, and they'll apply it to 20% growth.

到那时，他们可能会说你的利润率会达到20%，那就不错了。

And they'll probably say at that point, you'll be 20% margins, and they'll be happy.

然后他们就不再多想了。

And they'll call it a day.

于是你的股价就会定在那个水平。

And they'll have your stock price be that.

因此，我认为像我们这样在私募市场拥有更长投资视野的人，可能更容易理解这种极高的增长率。

And so I do think people like us with a longer time horizon in the private markets may have an easier time of actually grokking that very high growth rate.

但总的来说，我认为他们很难理解这一点。

But for the most part, I think it's pretty hard for them to grok that.

所以，再次强调，我们确实会与这些私募市场公司的创始人进行交流。

And so, again, you know, we have conversations with the founders of these companies in the in the private markets.

我认为我们是理解的。

I think we understand it.

我们理解多产品模式，而你不太可能在公开市场上找到足够多的人愿意为这种超高速增长给予认可。

I think we understand multi product, and you're less likely to find a full public market of folks who will give you credit for that hyper growth.

我觉得这是一个非常有趣的观察。

I find this to be a very interesting observation.

我的意思是，无论是公开市场还是私人市场，似乎几代人以前人们都会假设，好吧，这是一家非常大的公司。

I mean, just generally public or private, it does seem like several generations ago you assumed, Okay, here's a really big company.

它不可能是世界上增长最快的企业之一，于是你采用这种思维模式，下调了对它们增长的预期。

It's not going to be one of the fastest growing companies in the world, and you apply that sort of model mindset where you marked down their growth expectations.

即使是谷歌，在最近一个季度，其营收同比增长率实际上也高于上个季度。

Even Alphabet, I think in its latest quarter, actually had faster top line growth than it had in the quarter before, like on a year over year basis.

我有个问题想问你，我一直很好奇。

I have a question for you, something I've always wondered.

假设你们投资组合中的一家大公司最终上市了，比如Stripe之类的，那这家机构届时会如何考虑退出？

Okay, let's say one of your big portfolio companies goes public eventually, Stripe or something like that, how does the firm think about selling at that point?

是说，作为私人市场投资者，你们会很快退出，不想长期持有，然后股份被分配出去，由有限合伙人自行决定？

Is it, okay, you're a private market investor, you get out fairly soon, you don't want to hold that, do they get distributed, and then it's up to the LPs to think about it?

一旦公司不再是私营企业，你们的退出决策会是怎样的？

What is the sell decision like once a company is no longer private?

是的，这是个很好的问题。

Yeah, it's a great question.

顺便说一下，关于这些大型高增长公司，这对我们所有人都是一个很好的启示：最优秀的企业即使规模庞大，也能超越预期并保持快速增长。

And by the way, to your point on these large cap, high growth companies, it's a really good learning for all of us that the very best companies you know, sort of to fire expectations and still grow fast even though they're big.

这简直打破了绝对规模限制的定律。

Like, it's sort of the breaking of the law of the absolute Yeah.

是的。

Yeah.

公司的高光时刻。

Highs of a company.

比如，Meta 上个季度的收入增长加速到了 30%。

Like, Meta accelerated revenue growth to 30% last quarter.

对。

Right.

这真是令人震惊。

Like, that's shocking.

像一家估值接近两万亿美元的公司，还能实现30%的增长。

Like that a company that's worth, you know, almost $2,000,000,000,000 can accelerate to 30% growth.

谷歌也是如此，增长率超过20%。

Same with Google, north of 20% growth.

所以，如果你能找到这样的机会，我认为Stripe就是一个很好的例子。

So if you can find those opportunities, I would say Stripe is a good example of this.

上一代类似的企业可能是Visa和万事达卡。

Previous generations of this would be like Visa and MasterCard.

如果你当初有充分的理由相信这些公司能连续十五年保持20%以上的增长，那你对它们的估值方式会与认为其增长会逐渐放缓的情况截然不同。

Like if you had a strong thesis that those would grow at north of 20% for fifteen years, you would value it a very different way than if you thought that that growth would tail off over time.

因此，是的，我很高兴你提到了谷歌，我们思考这些大型上市公司，是为了帮助我们更好地理解私营市场中顶尖公司可能实现的前景——不仅限于五年，而是十年甚至更长时间。

And so, yeah, I think it's great that you brought up Google and, you know, we think about the large cap companies to try and inform what could go right with the best of the best companies in the private markets for us too, not just over five years, but over ten plus years.

所以，关于退出或减持的问题，当我们的公司上市后，我们的有限合伙人和投资者更倾向于获得分红，而不是我们出售股份。

So to your question about distributions or selling, when our companies go public, our LPs, our investors tend to like to have distributions as opposed to us selling.

好的。

Okay.

你知道，很多公司自己就有公开的交易柜台或公开业务，它们更倾向于持有股票，并自行处理税务影响，或者它们可能有一笔长期持仓希望继续持有。

You know, many of them have public desks or public operations on their own, and they would prefer to take the stock and, you know, manage tax consequences on their own or maybe they have, you know, a long book that wants to hold it.

因此，我们通常会选择将公司股份分配出去。

And so, you know, we tend to distribute companies.

我认为，大多数情况下，当我们的公司上市时，我会从增长阶段的角度来谈，那时我们进入的是公司更成熟的阶段。

I would say for the most part, when our companies go public, I'll speak from the growth where we're coming in at a more mature stage of the company.

一家公司上市，并不意味着我们就会退出。

Just because a company goes public doesn't mean that we will exit.

当然，我们始终致力于向我们的有限合伙人返还资本，并确保在合适的期限内完成这一目标。

Now, we always seek to return capital to our LPs, and we wanna make sure that we're doing that on appropriate time horizon.

但通常，我们会发现公开市场中我们的公司被严重低估的情况。

But often, you know, we'll find situations in the public markets where we think our companies are are massively undervalued.

举个例子吧。

You know, I'll give you an example.

我们最出色的投资公司之一叫Samsara，主要从事车队管理与司机视频追踪业务。

One of our best companies was company called Samsara, which does fleet management, video tracking for drivers.

他们是市场领导者，也是二次创业的创始人。

They're the market leader, second time founders.

他们曾是Meraki的创始人，该公司已被思科收购。

They were the founders of Meraki, which sold to Cisco.

因此，他们是一个非凡的团队。

So they're an exceptional team.

他们在2021年底刚刚上市。

They went public right at the tail 2021.

当时IPO市场开始冻结，他们是最后一例IPO。

And the IPO market was starting to freeze and they were the last IPO.

因此，我们最终成为了他们IPO中最大的买家。

And so we ended up being the largest buyer in their IPO.

所有的公募基金，比如富达、道富，有些也参与了投资，但我们实际上才是最大的买家。

So all of the public funds, you know, Fidelity, t row, some of them invested, but we ended up actually being the biggest buyer.

即使是在公开市场上，我们也长期持有这支股票。

And then we held that for a long period of time even though it was in the public market.

所以我们喜欢思考，即使公司已经上市，它的未来会是什么样子。

So we like to think about, you know, what is the future of the company even if they're in the public markets.

我们非常重视创始人来经营公司，这一点我很乐意详细谈谈，尤其是当我们认为公司的增长前景非常光明时。

We place a tremendous amount of value in founders running companies, which I'm happy to talk about, and if we think the the growth prospects are really bright.

那么，促使公司上市的实际动因是什么？

What's the actual catalyst for going public then?

因为如果私募市场资金充足，员工对薪酬普遍满意，人们也能承受资本成本，那为什么还要上市呢？

Because if we think there's plenty of capital in the private markets, employees are generally pretty happy with their compensation, people can live with the capital cost, why would you go public?

从时机角度来看，最常见的原因是什么？

What's the most common reason in terms of timing?

是的。

Yeah.

最重要的原因是能够获得更大规模的资金来源。

The biggest thing would be access to larger pools of capital.

而且，当你最终觉得做出了这种权衡，即公开市场的资本成本会更具吸引力时。

And, you know, you finally feel like you're making that trade off where the cost of capital in the public markets would just be much more attractive.

所以你想去那里做这件事。

And so you wanna go do it there.

比如建造太空中的数据中心，这将需要大量资金，你可以在私募市场获得相当多的资金。

So in the case of building, for example, data centers in space that will require a tremendous amount of capital over time, you know, you can get a lot of that capital in the private markets.

而且，也许在某些时候，如果你有宏大的抱负，进入公开市场融资是有意义的。

And, you know, maybe at some point it makes sense to tap the public markets to get that, you know, if you have huge ambitions.

此外，在公开市场获得债务和其他融资形式有时也更容易。

Sometimes it's easier to get debt, and alternative forms of financing in the public markets as well.

最后，如果你觉得员工的竞争非常激烈，我之前提到过季度性限制性股票单位和股票货币化的这种动态，这些在公开市场可能更容易管理。

And then lastly, you know, if you feel like the competition is really fierce for your employees, and, you know, I described that dynamic of, you know, quarterly RSUs and, you know, stock currency, that might be a little bit easier to manage in the public markets.

这会是另一个原因。

That would be another reason.

这不仅仅是关于员工。

It's not just employees.

如果你希望进行有意义的并购，那么在公开市场上市也有优势，因为你可以用公开的股票作为交易货币，而无需与卖方争论你股权的价值，因为在公开市场每天都有股价。

It's also if you want to do meaningful m and a, know, you there's probably a little bit of a benefit to being in the public markets and having a public currency that you can use, where, you know, you don't have to debate with the sellers what the value of your equity is, because it's in the public markets, you know, there's a there's a daily stock price.