[colesantiago]

"Private markets is where the wealth is (if you invested at the bottom)"

Stripe might not need your money now, but they certainly needed it at the pre-seed, seed stage where if you were an angel/seed investor you would have been able to participate.

[tptacek]

No they didn't. They were picky at the seed stage. They were picky in their first priced round. They were picky in every subsequent round. There was never a point where they wanted your money. The most promising companies fight off investors when word gets around they're raising.

There is never a point in the lifecycle of any of these companies where they wanted random retail investors with no network on their cap tables. The kinds of companies that do want those investors tend, for clear reasons, not to be the kind you want to invest in.

You don't want accreditation rules relaxed or eliminated. You simply want Stripe to be a public company instead of a private one. Fair enough, but Stripe doesn't want to be a public company.

[colesantiago]

Even worse. This means that no wealth will be created for people who actually want to invest.

With Stripe's non IPO example, many will follow and will stay private.

So more gatekeeping.