Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon tells startups to reconsider going public

Goldman Sachs is one of the biggest investment banker “book runners” for IPOs – where banks are paid millions of dollars for each listing they underwrite. Yet CEO David Solomon told attendees at the Cisco AI Summit in Palo Alto that startups should rethink the idea of ​​going public, reports Financial Times.

Solomon said that startups can get very big and get a lot of money in the private market without having to deal with the hassles of being a publicly traded company.

“It’s not fun being a public company,” he said. “Who wants to be a public company?”

Goldman is increasingly working with large private companies, including helping Stripe with its $6.5 billion round in 2023. Stripe is part of a growing class of large, private tech companies that are deciding to stay private for longer.