Comment by paxys

10 hours ago

Just look at the track record of SPACs for a preview of how that will turn out.

I think it’s still fine. I’ve invested a lot into some SPAC’s. I’m good on 1, break even on the other. And I’ll keep holding it, since these companies are still pre-revenue and I hope they 100X.

The overall idea of SPAC’s is not bad, even if Chamath only created them to exit his sh*t investments. There are very few other ways for retail investors to invest in potential 100-1000X companies (which are generally pre-revenue). Of course the flip side, is that most SPAC’s might close down and cause you to lose money. That is the decision for the investor to make, risky opportunities are fine! Sadly chamaths shitty tactics to close out his investments have tainted a completely fine idea.

  • > overall idea of SPAC’s is not bad

    It is. It’s a workaround.

    More directly, SPACs are financially engineered to extract wealth from retail. Every weird interest-rate, guaranteed-floor and private-placement provision is geared for it. We have a crap IPO process, in part due to reporting requirements, so sometimes the gamble works out.

  • > even if Chamath only created them to exit his sh*t investments. There are very few other ways for retail investors to invest in potential 100-1000X companies

    "I have this exciting bag-holding opportunity for you."

  • Have you tried reaching out privately to those companies you want to invest in? Stock trading doesn't only happen on stock markets, and the rationale for publicly traded companies being so regulated is because they're so easy to invest in.

    • That’s much harder. If it’s a big private company like OpenAI, you need a minimum 50k investment. For smaller companies, the number is much higher I assume.

      1 reply →

  • Dude. SPACs are structurally a _terrible_ idea for any non-privileged investor. The sponsors 20-25% comp, the early warrants, etc. All of those costs are taken out of the bag-holder, sorry “investors”, expected value. The entire thing is setup to maximise info asymmetry and perverse incentives for the sponsors at the cost of bag holders. The “shitty tactics” _are why SPACs exist_.

    • Even so, VRT has gone up 2000% since it SPACC’ed. RKLB was also a SPAC. A SPAC is a just a way to satisfy regulations as a pre-revenue early stage company. Most early stage companies fail, and that’s fine.

      If such a company succeeds and still retail investors, don’t get paid back, I would consider that fraudulent, but that’s not the case with SPAC’s. I would like to see SPAC deals be better to investors as opposed to banning them entirely.