I'm so glad to be here. It's fun and to prepare for this talk. I've been reading fairy tales Now none of the guys here will admit liking fairy tales right boys don't like fairy tales right until you get to my age Then they're charming So well, how many of you like fairy tales? Yeah, okay, so all the girls like Friday, right? well, so there's this wonderful book called Grimm's fairy tales and It's got all the fairy tales that you think you know and love, you know like what snow white and Cinderella and various stories about frogs turning into princes and Other bizarre things like that But it turns out that the original is better than the Disney versions So I'd encourage you to read this is what's called a what they were used to be called a book I don't know if you've seen one of these before I had to go to the museum, you know to pick it up and but anyway There's a wonderful story called the owls and the shoemaker and It's not long So I think I would like to read it very quickly And I like this and because it doesn't have any strange things like You know suddenly a witch just appears in the forest and gives you a poison apple in place the hex on you or What you know, what's that story that with is it the girl with the hair, you know from the movie? Tangled yeah Rapunzel or something so in the original it's like her father gives up his first-point child in exchange for a head of lettuce You know, what is that? What why would you do that? So none of those strange things happen in this story. This is just straight out Cool stuff because there's a lot of most of the stories in here actually involve merchants They involve merchants doing plain things like Making a table and then buying some jelly and things like that I mean just and you know, what's what's interesting about this stories that are covered in Grimm's fairy tales the book came out in 1812 so In 1812 in Germany Commerce was really cool because it was fairly new there was an emerging middle class Everybody could become you know wealthy by the standards of that time This is the first time in human history. This really ever happened that anybody could just start a business and make a lot of money So a lot of the Grimm's fairy tales were about businesses because businesses were new and when we think that's just normal, you know I don't think it's normal by the way. I think business is brilliant.  I tell you Ordered the inchorito everybody the poor inchorita. Nobody orders the inchorita. It's a great dish Anyway, I highly recommend it and my business is amazing. It's not so amazing to us because we're surrounded by it was amazing back in 1812 in Germany. So a lot of the stories about business. Let me read to the story of the elves and the shoemaker There once was a shoemaker who through no fault of his own had become so poor That at last he had only leather enough Left for one pair of shoes at evening He cut out the shoes which he intended to begin upon the next morning and since he had a good Since he had a good conscience he lay down quietly said his prayers and fell asleep in the morning When he had said his prayers and as preparing this was preparing to sit down to work He found the pair of shoes standing finished on the table He was amazed and could not understand it in the least. How many of you know the story? Oh Everybody does like a read anyway He took the shoes in his hand to examine them more closely because there's a lot of versions out there This is the real version He examined them more closely. They were so neatly sewn that not a stitch was out of place and were as good as The work of a master hand and soon afterwards a purchaser came in and As he was much pleased with the shoes he paid more than the ordinary price for them So that the shoemaker was able to buy leather for two pairs of shoes with the money now the story leaves out something, right? I mean clearly the shoemaker raised the price Right, and it's not like some guy came in and said proud not gonna pay the low price that I'm gonna pay a high price No way right shoemaker saw immediately these shoes worth more than the usual pair jacked up the price Which is hers right good for him sold him at the high price and the deal was made So he cut them out in the evening the with the with the shoes that he was making the next day with fresh courage He was about to go to work, but he had no need to for when he got up the shoes were finished and buyers were not lacking These gave him so much money that he was able to buy leather for four pairs of shoes Early next morning. He found the four pairs finished and so it went on When he cut out at evening and was finished in the morning so that he could soon again in comfortable circumstances So that he could soon again in comfortable circumstances and become a well-to-do man So it happened one evening not long before Christmas when he had cut out some shoes as usual. He said to his wife You think he would have said this earlier How would it be if we were to sit up tonight and see who it is that? Helping that all this time. He's rich right it never asked the question. How's this happening where these shoes coming from? He finally just has maybe maybe hasn't wise those days didn't talk much. I don't know what That but anyway, they decided to stay up that night. They got curious to see what was going on The wife agreed at well, honey. That's a lovely idea. Let's find out who made it rich And so they hid themselves in the corner of the room behind the clothes Which were hanging there. I mean, why did they think they had to hide and we want to just sit out in the open You know, but anyway, they hid at midnight came in two little naked men who sat down in the shoemaker's table Took up the cutout work and began their tiny little fingers to stitch so and hammer so neatly and quickly that the shoemaker Could not believe his eyes. They did not stop to everything was quite finished and stood Complete on the table then they ran swiftly away Into the night Little naked ales running through the streets or whatever. I don't know what The next day his wife said, you know So what they said nothing they just went to bed the next day his wife said little men have made us rich And we ought to show our gratitude They were running about about with nothing on and must freed freeze with cold now We'll make them little shirts coats waist coats and hose and even knit them a pair of stockings in and show make them each A pair of shoes and the husband agreed and an evening when they had everything ready They laid out the presents on the table and hid themselves to see how the little men would behave At midnight they came skipping in and were about to set to work But instead of the leather ready to cut out They found the charming little clothes at first they were surprised and then Excessively delighted and with great speed they put on and smoothed down the pretty clothes Singing now we're boys so fine and neat whatever the song is Cobble for others feet or whatever. I'm sure there's another verse. It's not printed here Then they hopped and danced about and left over chairs and tables and out the door They went henceforth they came back no more But it was okay because the shoemaker fared Well as long as he lived and had good luck in all of his Undertakings and so goes the story a Wonderful story and strange. I think it is a metaphor for Understanding economics and I'll tell you why in the following way We can think of ourselves as the merchants in some ways In some way, you know, they were poor. They had nothing They were struggling to get by as best they could But they couldn't make ends meet and they just couldn't get ahead in life That describes more or less the plight of humanity from about the beginning of recorded time until about 1800 That was the way all of history was nothing really ever happened at all That suggested that there was going to be any progress ever If you think about it, if you wanted to get a message from somebody just from one place to another place any time between say Ancient Greece and The American Revolution How are you going to do it? I mean you just wanted to get a message, right? You just want to like text just get a message to somebody well you had to Ride it out and run to that person or If you're really wealthy, you could hop on a horse and ride to that person Or if you had a boat you could get on a boat and let the wind carry you to that person and get them the message that was how information traveled for all of human history and Until the invention of the greatest thing that ever happened up to that point in time, which was the computer Yes, the iPad, right, right now, right somebody said telegraph Yeah, the wise man. There's a story in here about wise men anyway So yeah, the telegraph was amazing that was the beginning of modernity as we understand it that was beginning of our possibility of Sharing ideas with each other of communicating with each other that happened in something like 18. What 20 or something like that unbelievable Up until that time there was no other way to communicate. So you saw in in human history. So that doesn't work, right? I'm gonna have to describe this chart for you. So this is a chart of income per person throughout history It starts in 1,000 BC and goes all the way up to here and it's completely flat Completely flat nothing ever happened no progress really to speak of and Then in about 1800 we see income per person Shoots up and it goes up to the very top of that chart Just like that So isn't it wonderful that you were born like over in this tiny little corner of life Instead of any other time over here. I mean, that's kind of Fortunate you didn't really do anything. Did you to deserve that? I mean I mean you didn't Make that choice. Did you it just sort of happened to you and to all of us in this room So if you ever feel like you don't have anything to be thankful for Just sit down like that man with a good conscience in the story and say your prayers of thanks for the fact that you're born now Instead of at any other time if this was like a random thing You just kind of threw your life down on this chart somewhere most likely you wouldn't land here, but you did so good for you And congratulations. That's a wonderful thing because up until that time life was very very different But actually in fact well, let me just let me just explain to you why I think this is significant in light of that story this Line this income up in this tiny little corner here I think it's good to think of that as being the finished shoes in the morning, right? I mean this is this is the the man working throughout all of life. He wakes up in the morning. He's got the finished shoes That's what it is And the question is who made that how did this happen? What did you do really? What did any of us do not much? Really, we didn't do anything We just woke up and found ourselves with this finished pair of shoes We woke up and found ourselves in this unbelievable Prosperous civilization and we were laughing a little bit ago about that man and his wife and why it never asked the question Where do these shoes come from? They got enormous who wealthy and never occurred to him to figure out who's making these shoes Well, how often do we ask? Why we're so prosperous? Why do we have the lives that we have? I mean most people never ask They go to the store they buy something you go to Taco Bell and order an chorizo, you know, hey, it's my right, you know My iPhone my iPad my everything everything we're surrounded by The achievements of civilization are all around us and are we asking ourselves where they come from who built it Are we staying up at night to observe what happens? That's what economics is all about. It's about the desire to be curious About where all this stuff came from We should know we shouldn't just take it for granted We shouldn't just wake up in the morning and find the shoes and go That's neat and sell them and Sit on our riches. We should be curious and ask the question We should get to know these elves and find out who they are. Let me show you another chart I can't really show it to you. This is population. It's a very similar chart. It goes from the year 2000 BC all the way up to current times, which our current population is Now I think as of a week ago or so who keeps keeps track of this stuff. I don't know like last Tuesday or something 7 billion People on the planet. So here's the line from the 2000 BC up to the present as almost entirely flat We get a little bit of rise in population increases Notice that population increases before per capita wealth increases in the history of the world and then suddenly in the same period Basically mid mid mid 19th century and late 19th century We go from the lowest part of the chart up To the top of the support of the chart and one gigantic soaring rocket You know thing of a spike there unbelievable So in fact you can see that it's not entirely random that you're born during our times In fact, most all people in the history of the world were born in our times. I mean, it's it's quite unbelievable Actually, we look at the population increases So historians have asked the question, you know, why is this this can't be an accent? What do these shoes come from and if people do that? So I and there are some conclusions that historians and economists have come to that I'll share with you shortly but let me amuse you with a Some funny calculations the Economist magazine did If you think about history, what is history? Well the Economist magazine said well history is really people That's that's really what constitutes. I mean, is it really history happening if they know people? They're not really I mean history we think of most history is just people, right? so if you kind of consider that most people have been a lot that that have ever been alive were born in the last hundred years and You calculate that according to output per capita then they concluded that 55 percent of all of human history happened in the 20th century Pretty interesting way to look at it, isn't it and 25 percent of all of human history happened in the last ten years That's do you understand what what they're doing? It's a kind of a trick in a way, but it's brilliant when you consider just how fortunate how extravagantly we live and how Amazing the times we live in so the question is why and and this is where I would like to give you Something I discovered that there's not just two naked elves. That's just wrong in fact In fact, there are six Elves and they are fully clothed at the very outset, you know So you don't have to imagine naked elves anymore There are six elves and they have there are six names each one of them has a special name the first elf is named private property Private property is the beginning of civilization is the beginning of prosperity without which There can be nothing at all of any note That will ever advance our lives in any respect and the reason for that is that All scarce things have to be assigned an owner because it makes no sense to assign a Collective as the owner of any scarce thing not everybody in this room can can be in possession of this book simultaneously you can be in possession of the Story I read to you can carry that with you, but you cannot take this book It has to have an owner and so it is with all Scarce things in the world and everything you see around you every physical thing is scarce So of course it has to be owned and it's sheer nonsense to say that everything should be owned by everybody That really makes no sense at all and I don't understand how it is that this idea of socialism ever got off the ground I mean the first person who came up with socialism should just been laughed at and said well That's preposterous. Why don't you go back to your dream land and that would have been it right? I mean this idea should have been killed, you know about about 5,000 years ago or something I mean, but anyways the idea is still around Private property in a enables Every kind of human association Without private property we can't even get off the ground the second elf has named the division of labor And I'm pretty sure mark talked about this earlier now This is in a more extraordinary thing than you fully know division of labor means our capacity to Cooperate in a in a productive exchange with each other and there's something wonderful about this about the division of labor What it means is that everybody no matter what your abilities are? Can find a place within the matrix of exchange can find a productive employment for yourself and society and You can prove this mathematically and I wish I had time to do it But here's the here's the point That even if you're kind of like shabby it at at virtually everything you do There's still a place for you within the division of labor Even if even if somebody else, you know is amazing at doing things a million different things He simply does not have time to do all those things in the course of the day So he must have assistance and if you cooperate People of low skills and people of high skills cooperate then both parties are better off in the end and you can Absolutely prove this and this is this is the magic of the division of labor Is that it finds a place for every single human soul in the great productive enterprise of? Of global economics and the more information we have the more we can communicate with each other and the more there's private ownership The more of this cooperation is made possible division of labor is the beginning of the brotherhood of man That is the second Elf division of labor the third is exchange and I think we need to fully appreciate what this means To exchange to exchange one with another it's different from Just a pure gift an exchange is a mutual gift giving and that happens Every time you're engaged in any commercial activity, and I can give you my most recent example Actually last night at 10 o'clock. I went in to Taco Bell with $1.99 in my pocket And I looked up at that menu, and I thought is there anything in this menu That's worth to me more than what I have in my pocket And I looked up and I saw that incherita which brought back memories from childhood And I could practically taste it and of course the picture was better than the reality Inevitably but the reality is pretty great and also you can't eat a picture. So we don't complain So I said to the lady I said listen I have $1.99 in my pocket, but and it's worth a lot to me in many ways But your incherita is worth even more to me than what I own What about you? What's your sense is your incherita? Worth I know it's worth a lot to you But do you think that my money might actually be worth even more than your incherita and she said to me You know, I'm so glad you brought up this point Because it is in fact worth more to me than my incherita and I said, well, why don't we? Why don't we just exchange and that way you will get a gift of my money Which is worth more than your incherita and I will get a gift which is your incherita Which is worth more than my money and she said that is a beautiful idea And we exchanged with each other. I handed her the money She handed me this little plastic tray of mushy, you know beans with And we looked at each other's eyes And I said to her Thank you, and she said to me. No, thank you And it was wonderful and we were so happy afterwards so much happier than we were before And If you could repeat this a trillion times in the course of an hour all across the world What would happen? What would happen the world would be a very beautiful place? And that is in fact what is happening all the time and that is the source of our happiness the fourth elf is named risk-taking and You could also call it entrepreneurship. This is the wonderful thing about the market economy That it enables this tiny percentage of population these crazy people who just dare to pull back that veil of uncertainty and Ask what is going to happen tomorrow the rest of us? We're afraid of it. No, not entrepreneurs are not afraid of it They think they know they think they're they they're making a good judgment And they're willing to take a guess and they're willing to put their property at risk to see if their guess if their Judgment if their dream comes true they pull back the veil and they step beyond it and If they're wrong they lose and if they're right they win and we win We win because we get to use the products and we get to partake in their dreams That is a beautiful thing. There might be some entrepreneurs in this room You have to ask yourself if you're one of them They are our benefactors The elves called entrepreneurs are society's benefactors and they are what drive history forward They're what give us all the things we love The fifth elf is called capital accumulation if you look at poor countries and You wonder why they're poor and they're not rich Even though the people in those countries are smart productive trading exchanging ambitious charming peaceful This is this is true all over the developing world people are like this they are not lazy Monsters who don't know how to do anything. They're wonderful people who are very productive and they exchange all the time So what's the difference between poor countries and rich countries and all comes down to one word capital? That means the accumulation of Property that is used to make other kinds of property It is The means by which you produce things is the production of things in order to make other things So that's production can take several stages not just one time So you're not just making soup to serve for lunch But you're making the kettles in which the soup can be prepared and you can sell those kettles. That's called capital So capital is the difference between rich countries and poor countries capital cumulation must be permitted We must allow people to become rich We must allow people to become appallingly and filthily rich in Order to have capital so they can thrive so that we can all benefit from it That that's what allows for the extension of production over a long period of time and is what allows business firms to hire thousands and thousands and thousands of people and plan far out into the future because planning is the key to prosperity the sixth Elf as I'm calling them It's called and in some ways I think it may be the most important elf. It's called the desire for a better life and The belief that it can happen because Even if you have private property you have the possibility the vision of labor you have the opportunity for exchange You have entrepreneurs that are willing to take risks and you have the accumulation of capital If you have a culture in which people do not desire to live better And they don't believe that it can happen Everything will fall apart Everything will grow stagnant and Society will collapse and we will be reduced Back to what we were for the whole of human history which was a groveling teeming mass of nothings living hand-to-mouth sleeping on grass And being bitten by bugs at night by the way, which is a very unpleasant thought That's what keeps me kind of living in capitalism. It's a prospect of being bitten by bugs at night because I don't like that but So if if you don't believe in the future and you don't believe that you can do this and that you should live a better life Everything will fall apart. So in the end It all comes down to you To what you believe about yourself and what you're capable of and I don't think That times could ever get so bad that there are not opportunities in this world In your lifetime for you to make a contribution you yourself to make a marvelous contribution to build in civilization And what else are you here to do? besides that I'm not speaking in a theological sense. We have many jobs Spiritually and theologically but materially what are we here to do? We can make a dent in the universe We can make a difference. We don't have we don't know how long we have to make that difference But you can be one of them If you desire a better life If you desire and you believe that it's possible You will find the opportunities You will look for the ways and you can become that one elf that makes the difference between That couple living in poverty and that couple living in vast riches. Thank you very much


Y ddwylo'r drwsiaeth yn dwydoeisio, a byddai'n gwybod i'r cyhoedd nôl i IPOs, ac mae'n gwneud i'n ddeithasio i ddim yn ei ddelwedd. Rwy'n rhan i'r drwsiaeth yn berdig a'i gydig i'r ddechrau. Felly, o'r pryd o'i ddweud y cyfrifiadau, sicrhau ei ddechrau, yn dweud o'r cyfrifiadau, mae'n ei ddechrau, ac mae'n ei ddweud i'r cyfrifiadau. Byddwch yn yr Gallai Newydd, ac yn fawr, Mae hyn yn ynnwigaf y Gymraeg i'w hoffio arfer o rhoi i'w fanfath a'r hoffio ar 1990 i'w nhw'r 2,000 oesol, mae'r hoffiaith yn rhaid datblygaeth y pwysig o'r rhaid o'r hyffes. A hyn ym mwynodd oherwydd mae'n sifat yn hoffio ar y gyrslu i fynd ymherwyddner oherwydd cyflengyfrif ar gael, ac mae'n rhaid i'n mynd o'n ni o'r ddau i dd Lywodraeth ymherwydd yng nghymredig. Roedd yma'n dysgu yma. y fel y cymorth ac mae gyda認od trwydor i gyhoeddech chi'n mynd i gyd am y cymorth yn cymaint yn so jechydnod gan y gweld hwnnw i gydych yn cyflog iawn. A mae rydyn ni'n gwybod dwi'n f applauds gyda'r cwmhwylion. Roedd yw e'n canidol hefyd a'r cwmhwylion, roedd e'n cael ei gwaith yma, oherwydd e'w peitio'r adegwyd a'r cyflogiaeth o'n doglwydd o'r cost oherwydd e'n gweithwyd a'r bwysig, oherwydd e'n cwmhwylion o'r mlynedd yn iCOs yn 2017. Waithe y prifes ar tynnig readyadau neu arnynt crytiau popeth? If we have a market, the public markets, where essentially one of the kind of bases of modern shareholder driven capitalism and thus for the underpinnings of the modern market economy, and so if we're moving away from that what are those consequences? So those broadly were the two themes that I wanted to push to do that a fantastic panel. Very briefly to introduce them over that, I don't know how I do this in the circle. Over there, Tony Fernandez, CEO of AirAsia, the largest airline in Malaysia, done several IPOs and I think planning to do some more. So we'll hear the perspective of someone who's been involved in that and hopes to do some more. Then next to him, Abidali Nimuchwala, CEO of Wipro, who and Wipro have just bought a period for 500 million. So they're big corporates buying, doing big investments in other corporates. So the big play investment, which saves the others going public. So that's the alternative perspective next to him. Bill Ford, CEO of General Atlantic, which is of course the private equity VC perspective coming from you here to my left. Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of CloudFair, CloudFair officially unicorn, a valuation of more than a billion. I don't know what the latest valuation is. I'll leave that to you to tell people, but you have not gone public yet and I'm sure we'll find out whether you're planning to. And then when he turns up, I don't think he's been a little bit delayed. Tom Farley, president and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, who will no doubt have a strong perspective on what's going on here. So let's start with you, Bill. And why don't you give us a sense of why you think this is happening in the US in particular? Why have we had such a slowdown in the number of IPOs? Sure. Thanks, Zini. Thanks for having me here. I would say a couple of points. Brilliant. You just missed my... It was a very long erudite introduction when I said how absolutely wonderful you were. Tom Farley, president and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange. Hey, Tom. You know, one comment to make is that the actual volume of IPOs by dollar volume last year was up almost 50%. So actually 2017 was a good year for US IPOs. But what we've seen is I think a real decline in the small cap IPO. And that's been going on for 10-plus years, maybe even longer. And I think it's because of three basic reasons. One is a massive increase in the amount of private capital that's available to invest in high-quality private companies. There's only over a trillion dollars of uninvested private equity. There's probably another trillion of sovereign wealth and family capital that's interested in growth companies. The second is, and I hope we'll hear from this from Tom on this topic, but the regulatory burden, if you go all the way back to Sarbanes Oxley through Dodd Frank, the cost of being a public company has gone up dramatically and all the issues around compliance. And I think that's been a significant issue. And the third one is one that maybe doesn't get talked about as much, but I think is significant is really the change in the economics of the equity trading business. If you go back into the 90s with sort of the peak of the small cap IPO market, many of the investment banks who are underwriting these IPOs were able to enjoy very significant trading profits for these small cap companies. And that allowed them to pay for research, for market making, and really causing them to pursue it. But with decimalization and real change at the investment banks, there's very little desire to really spend money on research and on equity market making anymore for companies that have a cap, let's say below $2 or $3 billion. So, why don't we go through those individually because you've set up the structure brilliantly. And let's start, but let's start not with the sources of capital. Let's start with the regulatory burden, the costs of compliance. Tony, you've taken companies public and you're thinking about taking more companies public. Have you taken any public in the US? Actually, Tom has been trying to get me to do that. OK, so interesting. So, you know, how do you... You gave me one of the most amazing proposals I've ever seen from a stock exchange and it should be congratulated for his amazing marketing ability. We want to be... I mean, we're a fan of the public market and both positive and negative and we'd love to be in the NYSE, going back to Bill's point on the whole regulatory issue and the litigas kind of issues that come out kind of scared us. But we think that's something we're going to work through with Tom. I think going back to me, I mean I started this airline and I bought the airline for 25 cents and with two planes and now we've grown to 220 planes. We wouldn't be able to do that without the public markets. And we listed our airline in 2004 and it's been great. But you see the problems arising in the public market, the volatility, the short-termism. You know, two years ago my stock price was 70 cents. Today it's set a record at 414. We haven't changed fundamentally dramatically in those two years. That, I think, is one of the problems. Private investors have a much longer-term view and it's much easier to manage, I don't know if I haven't worked with Bill, but I assume it's easier to manage Bill than hundreds and hundreds of fidelities and wellingtons, et cetera, et cetera. We'll nicknash this, so anyway. He's not an IPO on the other side. I know, I know, I know. He's an American citizen. So I'm going to get Tom to respond in a second. Is the U.S. worse than everywhere else in terms of... Do you have those same concerns outside the U.S.? It is, in my opinion, it is the toughest. And I can't go into the history, et cetera, and there may be legitimate reasons for it. But when you're asking as to why we aren't, those are the concerns. And I know Bill said, I think, that the present administration is trying to address some of those things. But I mean, it is the best market to be in. It's the best market to be in for visibility, capital, et cetera. But these things hold us back and hopefully those will be sold in due course. But my main issue with the public market is other short-termism. You know, for an airline such as ours, it took us many years to develop Indonesia. It took us many years to develop the Philippines and we were hammered by the stock market.  And I said, I'm not going to, you know, the analysts were saying, close it down, close it down, close it down. Now both these airlines are worth in excess of a billion. So that, I think, is not something that New York Stock Exchange or anyone can address. Coupled with the fact that private investors are giving phenomenal valuations. I sit here for growth companies.  We have enormous data. But a similar company in Matthew's area from a tech field, we get 80 times valuation and I'm getting three or four times. So private investors are viewing things differently from public investors and have a much longer term view. And I think those are the issues coupled with regulatory, coupled with profit records and all kinds of new things that come up, which I think deters companies from looking at the private equity market. They're all really good points and we're going to get to the short-termism in a minute. But I just, Tom, let me ask you to respond to that, to the issue of regulatory and compliance costs. And, you know, I think there is a general view that they've got up in the U.S. that it's now a competitive issue in the U.S. Do you agree with that and what are you doing about it and how are you going to persuade Tony? So sure, and thank you for that. And first, let me just, let me just echo what Bill said. The IPO business in the U.S. is exceedingly healthy. For example, through January of this year, we'll likely be the biggest one we've ever had in the history of the New York Stock Exchange in terms of proceeds raised. In fact, may well already... But not in terms of number of companies. No, that's where I was going to go. And we likely will have five IPOs raising $700 million or greater the first time ever in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. But to your point, the number of public companies is down by close to half over 20 years while the aggregate market cap is up by three and a half times. So the average company is six or seven times bigger than it was. It's a very healthy market if you're a big company. What does that mean for a small company? It means there's a lot more regulatory costs. Let me broaden the scope of regulatory costs. It's not just the costs that came with Sarbanes Oxley and Dodd Frank, which are kind of strictly speaking regulatory costs, more internal audit, more compliance, so on and so forth. It's also the rise of the activist investor. The number of activist campaigns is increasing all around the world by about 100 to 150 per year. Last year there was close to 600 modified activist campaigns, many of which were in America, and shareholder class action lawsuits. So in the U.S., we've had around about 3,500 shareholder class action lawsuits over the last 10 years. And in other regimes, you don't have shareholder class action lawsuits. I just came from a meeting of the head of state in Hong Kong. They don't have shareholder class action. In London, it's enabled or allowed, but there's very, very few. So the costs are significant. But, and then I'll conclude, if you come list there like Nick did or Mark Stunn several times, you are holding yourself out to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which is going to have high regulatory standards. It actually has high standards to be able to list your company. And there's a benefit to that. It attracts capital, it attracts liquidity. There's a reason why we have $40 trillion in market cap, whereas the other exchanges I mentioned, great exchanges, London is $3 trillion or $4 trillion. Hong Kong, less than that. So if you list your company there, you're going to have tighter spreads, lower transaction costs. Your currency is going to be easier to use when you go do transactions. There's pros and there's cons, and that's how I look at it. And actually some of that scrutiny may not be a bad thing for corporate governments as well. We'll get to that in a second, but Matthew, from your perspective, your company is large, it might perhaps in a different era have thought about going public earlier. Clearly now hasn't yet. Tell us as a co-founder, as a tech entrepreneur, why have you decided not to go public yet and when you listen to this, which of the causes resonates most with you? Well I think certainly there's plenty of access to capital. And if we needed to raise private capital tomorrow, there would be probably people in this room that would be happy to write us a check for that. I think there's a time and a place for things as companies mature. When we first got started, there were three of us above a nail salon in Palo Alto. And at that time we didn't have formal audits, we didn't have a board, we didn't have all of those things. And then we raised capital from other people, from private venture capital investors. And we started to do things like have board meetings. And then we grew larger and we raised capital from other people, we started to have formal audits. Today our last round was led by Fidelity actually, and back in 2014. And we started doing mock earnings calls to practice to get ready to be a public company. And I think that we've always thought that that was the path that we were on. And at some point, I think you do have to move out of your parents' basement effectively. And so we're headed down that path, but we want to do it at the right time. And we've built a good enough business that we don't have to go public. There are two reasons you go public, either because you have to, you've run out of other sources of private capital, or because you want to. And back in 1999, in a former life, I was a securities attorney. I worked on six IPOs in one summer, and it was fun. And someday it might be ringing a bell or pushing a button, but again, I think there's a time and a place. And the availability of capital right now has allowed good companies to pick and choose what that time and place is. So the availability of capital means you haven't had to, but it sounds from the tone of your remarks that at some point you might want to. Why will you want to list? What is it that you will want to get out of it? Well, I think we have a duty to the people who've invested in us, both in terms of capital that they've provided to us, and then our employees in terms of the time that they've put into the company. And everyone who is an employee at Cloudflare is an owner of Cloudflare. And so we want to make sure that we can return that to them. And so, again, Michelle and I have always thought of this as, we're sort of climbing an infinitely tall mountain.  But going public is a big step in and of itself, which is why we've been for now a year and a half doing mock earnings calls every quarter with actual analysts listening in on them and doing the things to get ready so that when we do stand up there and ring the bell, it's less of a big change at the company. And again, it's a smaller incremental change. So it's essentially access to liquid markets so that your employees can... Can I just dive in a little bit, Matthew? You said another benefit is that shareholders can make different choices post IPO, meaning Matthew may choose to stay in for the long haul, for the full mountain climb, but there may be some other investors or early employees who say, I'd like to get liquidity. And I think one thing that versus selling a company's entirety you get from an IPO is this ability to make different choices. And I think that's a really valuable tool for a company like Cloudflare. Now, there are private markets and NYC and others have done things to create that liquidity without an IPO. But at the same point, we have competitors that have a lower cost capital than we do because they can access the public markets. You can attract a different caliber of employees because you have some sort of a liquid stock. So there are real benefits. And again, maybe more than anything else, it's just this is what you do as you build a larger company to show that you're credible to go through the regulatory hurdles. Yeah, they're costly, but there's a real purpose and a benefit for that. And that cost then gives people who are trusting their capital with us that we have controls in place, that we have those things. It's a badge of growing up. But the basement analogy is rather good. Kids move out of their parents' basement at older ages now, but at some point they eventually do. The other one is that it's almost like when you share a company, it's like playing with a toy boat in the bathtub. And then maybe it graduates to the swimming pool and then to the local pond and eventually to the lake. I think that we're now to the point where we want to go out on the harbor, but I'm not sure we're quite ready for the North Atlantic. And so I think that that's the question is, how do you take those little steps? And there's something very different about being kind of a one to $10 billion company to being a $500 billion company. And the public markets don't totally differentiate between that, but we're trying to think through how to create government structures to... I want to get to that at some point, how the public markets treat those. But Abid, let's turn to you, because you are coming at this from a different direction, which is you are probably one of the reasons why some tech companies haven't had to go public, because you come in with a very large capital infusion and buy them. So from your perspective, do you think differently now about investments in a way that is a sort of secular change for these companies that they don't have to IPO? Yeah, so, you know, I look at it from two perspectives. One is VIP at New York Stock Exchange, and there was value to it at a time. Of course, there is a cost of governance, and today we are a $8 billion company, but when we IPOed, we are an order of magnitude smaller. But access to the U.S. market, well, a lot of things about regulation and the inconvenience we can call, but there is a value to the corporate governance and a listing in a U.S. stock exchange provides you, especially when U.S. is a large market for you to be able to do business over here, and that's a big advantage that especially international companies get by getting themselves listed. The other is obviously capital, and that, to your point, is access to capital. There is much more avenues to access capital today than there were before, and especially in the tech sector where we invest and we can buy acquired companies or fund companies. There is also a value to the strategic secrecy that it provides, where the disclosure requirements, especially of your strategy and the secret sauce, which is why the company's value, especially in the early stages, is of value to stay private and not go public. And we see there's a competitive differentiator because if we are able to get companies where there's a great strategy, great product and a great team in there to be able to invest that money, and of course it helps with the large balance sheets that we carry. Can I now, before we turn to what the consequences of this are, though, ask whether there is actually a downside to these start-ups staying private until they've come really quite big. And let me throw out two. One is that actually the lack of disclosure that you can get away with means that problems get stored up, and we can all think of any number of companies where that's clearly been the case. And the second is there a risk that you have locked in through your series EF or whatever valuations that are kind of crazy valuations in this environment of very abundant capital with the result that actually you kind of can't go public because you're massively overvalued. I mean, that's something we've tried to be very careful of. We've had offers to invest in us at valuations that are significantly higher than we've had before, and that's relatively cheap capital for us to take. But the risk is that you get too far over your skis, and I think that you can see a number of high-profile technology companies that have taken very high valuations that just can't be justified by any revenue multiple, and then they get stuck in this place where they don't want to do a down-round because that creates all kinds of internal just challenges, and they have to wait to grow into whatever that valuation is. So we've tried to stay very disciplined at actually sort of taking what we thought of as the right valuation. The last time we raised money, we actually had to talk the valuation down slightly because we had people that were proposing things that were crazy, and again, that seems as an entrepreneur like a good thing, but if you get too far over your skis, that just creates a trap for you in the long term. Yeah, I think Matthew's dead right on this, and I think what we've seen happen over the last 10 years is the growth of very complex structures, preferred stock structures that really create a significant friction, and so it's valuation is one thing, but if you've got certain terms in the preferred stock, which is typically the form people invest in, it really makes it difficult oftentimes for boards and entrepreneurs to make the choice to go public until they can clear a fairly significant valuation hurdle. Yeah, that's something that the community doesn't talk about enough is the terms that you can get any valuation you want if you'll write whatever terms are in that, and a lot of these late stage rounds are putting in terms that have guaranteed IPO prices or the right to some sort of debt structure or something else which is involved. We again tried, we said, we want just vanilla terms as clean as possible, as close as you can be up a suit with common shareholders, and I think that's then made it so that we can make much more rational decisions where we're very much aligned with what our investors are doing. And how much is the kind of, not only the abundance of capital, but the abundance of capital from very different sources, so there's the kind of traditional VCs, there's the big corporates getting in now, the sovereign wealth funds, how big is the soft bank fund? I mean, it's got up 100 billion or something. So there's a lot of money. Is that clouding, and you can give me the founder's perspective a minute, but from your perspective, is it basically clouding everybody's judgment and that there's just far too much money being thrown in? I wouldn't go as far as clouding judgment. I'd say it's a very strong alternative for companies that maybe for good reason want to stay private. I think what was stated about strategy is important. A lot of times companies just don't want their strategy disclosed. Maybe they don't have the processes and rigor ready to deal with quarterly earnings reports, and those are good reasons actually to stay private longer, but what's different now from 20 years ago is that scale capital is available for private companies that wasn't before. I mean, multi-hundred-million-dollar equity checks for still relatively high-risk businesses is available. And again, not just from VC private equity, but sovereign wealth funds are active. The vision fund you mentioned from Softbank, of course, and wealthy families. I mean, and there's so much interest in getting exposed to technology. A lot of the companies we're talking about are tech companies that I don't see debating. How much turn is this a tech-specific phenomenon and a US-specific phenomenon? Or how much do you see the sources of capital and availability of capital changing dramatically for a company? Well, for me, the source of capital are really clearly tech-oriented. Not many people want to invest in airlines. Certainly, I haven't met any in Davos, except for Tom. If you'll come less. Exactly. Just want to tell one point just from an Asian perspective. I don't think there's anyone in Asia who's worked.  Valuation and image and brand. And I think no one's worried about the regulatory compliance, because, as you said, you get the valuation for it anyway, so you get it back. It's more the unknown of the litigist, the litigation. That kind of puts us, especially for an airline. But going back to your original question, I think a lot of the alternative capital is being driven to the tech side. That's where some of these valuations are coming up. That's where some of these big numbers are being thrown at. I don't think it's necessarily. And most of that is US-driven. So that's why you're seeing that. So I don't think it's an entire industry. I think many, many companies in the old industries are still trying to get capital from the IPO markets, et cetera. And then what I see as an interesting phenomenon is that many people are trying to rebrand themselves as tech companies. I want to try and say that I'm a tech company. I'm not an airline anymore. It's going to take me a while. I've got a lot of data. I've got 89 million customers. I've got all that data. It's a snap, which is a camera company. Exactly. So I do see that phenomena coming up. And that shows that people are saying, well, how come that Uber is worth this and we're worth this? And I think those are the questions that are being thrown out at the moment. So let's posit for the moment that the trend we've seen in the last few years is going to continue. So broadly companies listing later bigger deals, but smaller number of listings and tech having these multiple sources of capital are going to IPO later. Is that, where is that going to lead us in terms of the nature of basically capital ownership and capitalism? And what does it mean for the way businesses are run? What does it mean for shareholders? What does it mean for societies at large? And you mentioned short termism earlier as being one reason that you were a downside of being in the public markets, if you will. Are we going to get more long term thinking and better functioning businesses? Or are we going to get ones that are overvalued and don't have proper disclosure? And your ordinary person doesn't have access to the wealth creation that they're doing because they don't have access to the public markets. You must think that's a lot. I'm dying to pick up on two themes quickly that have been sure. Can I do it? And then I'll answer your question directly. The first is you asked are there negatives of not being public? I think the answer is obviously yes. You look at some of the high profile public companies. You think of Uber where Dara came out yesterday and said our moral compass wasn't pointed in the right direction. Well, as a public company, you're answering publicly to shareholders once a quarter. You are required to have a whistleblower hotline. You are required to have independent directors who care deeply about being sued. You think about other private companies right now who are dealing with management turmoil because of bad behavior in the workplace. Again, once every three months going in front of investors, having to have a whistleblower hotline. Or finally, you think of Facebook. Facebook showed up at their first earnings call without a mobile strategy and thought that was OK. They weren't all in on mobile. If they had been a private company, their stock would not have gone down by. I don't remember. It was enormous, 40%. They've now got mobile right and taken over the world. And that was the public market instilling discipline. Because I went a little long on that one, I won't mention the second point, which is there's also a benefit in having a public currency, a stock, because right now everything is going great, but eventually we'll hit a rough patch and Cloudflare as a public company will be able to go acquire companies with really great IP using their public currency. To answer your question directly, I'm an optimist. Again, it sounds like I'm a homer because I run the New York Stock Exchange. I think things are going well. We're having a bang-up year already here, coming off a great year last year. We were sitting here 10 years ago, Cloudflare would already be a public company. They're not a public company, so we haven't had a listing fee from them in the past two years. And investors like my father sitting at home in Bowie, Maryland, who doesn't have the wealth or sophistication to get into a hedge fund, hasn't participated or venture capital firm, hasn't participated in the wealth creation. Those are both negatives, one personally and one societal, but they're not the end of the world. Things are going pretty well, so I go ahead. Well, actually, if you aggregate from your father, there are an awful lot of people who are not in any way taking part in this wealth creation. And so it does mean that the benefits of this enormous wealth creation are accruing to a very, very small number of people. But on the flip side, there was a ton of wealth destruction in the dot-com bubble because there was a lot of small technology companies that got public that shouldn't have that people invested in. And the fertilizers of this world are getting into this. They're basically investing in private. But yes, go ahead. I think there is an issue about this from a societal point of view, but I divided in two categories, individual investors and institutional investors. On the institutional side, which your pension funds and other type of institutional investors, they are getting access to these private companies. Their allocation of private equity is going up from 4% to 10%, and it's trillions of dollars of more capital coming in. So many of the beneficiaries of these pension funds around the world are benefiting from great companies that we all know about. The place I worry more is on the individual investor side in really two dimensions. One is indexing. There's a ton of capital flowing into indexes, as we know, which is good. But there's a shrinking pool of public companies to be indexed against. And I think that's a negative for those individual investors. And the other thing is, I think the IPO market and individual participation in the IPO market reinforces the sense of capitalism being a positive. Because, well, this is great entrepreneur. They started a company like Cloudflare. I'm an individual. I get to buy in that stock and watch their success and participate in that success. Makes me feel good about the nature of capitalism and wealth creation. Now, I can't be an Airbnb. I can't be an Uber right now. I'd like to be, I use the product. I think that's a place where we're losing something in terms of a whole generation of young people who could become investors and might become more convinced that capitalism is a positive. I think that's the only way. Because while the overall prosperity is increasing, the world GDP is increasing, but the happiness index is going down. Yeah, yeah. And that's the reason, you know, disparity is not good for the society. And again, the democratisation of wealth that public markets provide is in a way hindered by not going public. So, there is a society in the future there. Let's open now to questions. But before I do, and this is not something that the wealth organisers have told them I'm going to do, so it may be very much against the rules, but I wanted to just have a show of hands around the room of how many of you think that the decline in IPOs or the slowing in IPOs that we've talked about absolutely for younger companies is a bad thing. A broadly a negative development. A few of you. Okay, that's really interesting. So it's not a broadly held view that it worries you too much. Now, are there any questions from anybody? There are mics. Yes, sorry. Is there any relationship between the decline in IPOs and the development of the shadow banking, which is the non-banking system? The market-based finance. Bill. I mean, most of the shadow banking that people talk about is in China. China does not have a well-developed equity market and Tom should really comment on this, but... Most of the shadow banking is in the US market because it's much bigger. You can see the report of the shadow banking done by the... I think you mean the broader definition of non-bank financing, so you mean... The G20 report. On the need. The stability report. But do you mean basically bond issuance and anything that is non-bank finance? Yes, everything from lending, leasing, credit, non-banking credit, all those intermediaries, private equity funds, asset managers, hedge funds who lend to companies without going through the banking system. So this is a huge finance. It's now reaching $90 trillion globally. And it's mostly US, China and Europe, of course. So I was wondering if there were a relationship because this is all money that is really from peer to peer, and it even includes crowdfunding and other things. So it's money that is really circumventing stock markets. I think, if I can rephrase the question, I think there's lots of different financial systems. Some European banking systems are very bank-focused, others much less bank-focused. They've been less bank-focused for a long time, but there have been lots of financial innovations, whether it's private equity innovations, whether it's the VC industry. Often the US was the epicentre of that. Has that been part of the reason the growth will turn to sources of the people? I mean, maybe, I'm sorry I didn't understand the question. Apologize, but I think that to your point, the US intermediates a lot of capital through the capital market and through the equity market. And it's one of the best things about the US system. Other countries intermediate much more through the banking system and they want to be able to have more regulatory control on that. Neither is good or bad. I just think, again, the strength of the US capital market is the fact that the securities market function generally pretty well. Are there questions? Yes, gentlemen there, right over there. Can you talk a little bit about the differences in governance? So one of the arguments that's being put forward is that, actually, look, you have this great public market, great analysts, they'll try questions. I mean, is that really true when you have kind of people who have a very small percentage of your company, maybe they don't care that much, the quality of families coverage is partial, I guess. Is it not better to have one or two very big, very engaged investors how would you compare the two worlds? Tom, why don't you go with that? That's a great question. You know, if there's one thing that I'd proffer about governance as a certainty, it's that we never have the perfect governance arrangements and we always have to keep evolving and approving how we think of governance. In fact, I just came from a meeting discussing dual-clash shares, which is a very hot topic in the US that you may be familiar with, but essentially there's some blowback from the buy side in the United States against dual-clash shares and some of the index providers have actually said companies with dual-clash share settings we're not going to allow to be in our indexes because we're not entirely certain that they're well governed. It's not a view that I hold personally but just to give you an idea. To answer your question directly, I think having a dispersion of shareholders is a great thing and having a dispersion of shareholder views as long as your board is appropriately constructed that the voices of those shareholders can be heard and that you're in a transparent, highly-regulated system which I think by and large the US gets right. We can always quibble with it and we can improve it but I think by and large we get it right. You know, and I'd add that the way, I think the answer is different at different stages in your company. When we were three people about the nail salon, you know, governance was, what should we do today?  Right? As it would not have made sense when we raised our first capital for us to have to, in one of the reasons, we never took friends and family money because I didn't want to have to tell 15 different uncles what we were working on, you know, every Thanksgiving. And so, you know, as, if we're the boat that's getting ready to sail out into the harbor, the question is what's the governance structure that makes sense? And I think that, you know, we looked at things like dual-class stock and I think most of the time dual-class structures were set up in such a way that sort of believes in this great man theory. The Mark Zuckerbergs are genius, therefore let him completely control the company. I am not Mark Zuckerberg and I would actually be very nervous if, you know, the entire governance was controlled, the company was held by me. On the other hand, I think that we're not quite ready for the North Atlantic. And so what's the right governance structure? And I think we did something that was fairly unique which was we created a dual-class system but we said every single active employee at Cloudflare gets that second class of shares and those shares get 10 times the voting rights of the other shares. And by doing that we were trying to signal that the people who are coming to work every day, making choices about what we're going to build are the ones that have the biggest vote in what is the future of the company. Now over time I think we'll continue to build a bigger and bigger boat and at some point we'll be ready for the North Atlantic and at that point, you know, that structure may not be in place but I think kind of creative but thoughtful governance structures is a way of better bridging that gap between sort of the late stage private companies and the early stage public companies. I wanted to, yeah, I wanted to, because this gets very close to a point you raised earlier that we haven't come back to because the flip side of the right governance structure, or the opposite of it, is the question of short termism that you raised earlier. I mean, to what degree are you worried and, but we'll turn you to say it first, to what degree is, you mentioned the public markets made you worry about short termism. How can you change that? How can you improve things from your perspective within the public markets or what's the right structure that maximises long termism but also maximises oversight in the right governance? Just going back to the question, it's hard. I mean, I find a lot of people hate analyst meetings and all the road shows, et cetera, et cetera, but a lot of companies pay a lot of money to these management consultants to give them advice. I found a lot of bright kids, a lot of smart people who focus me, focus me on my strategy, push me, ask me the right questions. Some of them are irritating, let's be real, because we all think we're super brilliant. But it puts you in a position to think and focus. And I've found those analyst meetings, I've found those questions during calls really good in helping me formalise my strategy. So, you've got a much bigger pool of brains working you for free in some ways, all those research analysts, et cetera. And one of the reasons why we like the NYSE is because the research capabilities in America are fantastic. And so they push you to your limit. Doesn't solve everyone's quarterly targets. And I think that's one of the issues of the failings of the public market. And so how do you deal with that? I'm not sure, I mean just, it's communication really and it takes time, it takes a lot of time. But I mean ultimately people are governed by yearly bonuses and profits and quarterly things. And so getting someone to say, well I'm going to make Indonesia work in eight years, you know they stick two fingers up in me and say well that's going to help my bonus next year. So that I don't think will ever really solve that. But you know communication is the best way of looking at it. And I think some of the private markets have helped me. I'm saying well look at the guys investing in Uber. They seem to be very comfortable that Uber can lose billions every year because they have a vision and Amazon has showed the way as well when they were in the private and then they've gone public as well. And when they were public they continued to invest all their profits in for growth. And so there are some examples we can use. But I still believe that it's and personally it's better to have a larger spread of shareholders than one or two guys who might have the wrong idea on how your company going in and then you go down the wrong way. You know short termism, I think it's not about being a public company drives short termism the guidance that you give every quarter that you then need to achieve drives the short termism. And I think so there are remedies within the existing public market system because the benefits definitely outweigh on corporate governance, transparency, all of that especially for large companies to be public. And some of the short termism can be addressed by us. The few things that we do being a public company which drives short termism with the management incentives and guidance. And how of you Matthew because you clearly thought about this a lot. How are you going to balance those two? So I think one is what we've done in terms of dual class structure and if you are Mark Zuckerberg and you do have control of the company, you can make big bets like buying Instagram or buying for a billion dollars, buying WhatsApp for 20 billion dollars. I mean those are big bets, at least the Instagram bet is paid off handsomly if he didn't have that control would it have been as easy for him to make that bet? I'm not sure. Again, I'm not sure that I on my own know what the right thing is for Cloudflare for sure, but I'm pretty sure that the people who show up for work every day have a better sense than some hedge fund that's just trading in and out of our stock on a daily basis. I think one thing that's an interesting area to watch is what Eric Rees is doing around the alternative listing market with the idea that investors earn a voting right over a long term period of holding the stock. I think there's interesting work that's being done here and some of that's around new governance models, some of that might be around new market structures, but it's definitely trying to get the best of the ability to make those big long term bets like you see a Google or a Facebook do not be governed by just kind of what we hit that next quarter. And and really, but then at the same time having the right controls in place that you don't that you don't see fraudulent or or or malfeasant behavior. On the other question, yes, gentlemen. I have a question about your views contemplating it. There's lots of opinion on whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. I believe the NYSE allows for direct listing. Do you see it as a positive or a negative? Do you see it as apropos for some companies more than others? So in some ways, other than the fact that we all use Spotify, it's this, you know, big famous company. It's it's it's a bit of a non event. We've had, I think, 80 direct listings over the last five years. So it's kind of day we're gore. What's different here is, well, first let me tell you, a typical direct listing is a company emerging from bankruptcy. Those are almost always direct listings. We had one Avaya last week, the old phone company, if you're familiar. And what a direct listing is, is becoming a public company without raising capital. That's an IPO when you raise capital. Companies emerging out of bankruptcy, OTC upgrades, companies that trade in the kind of pink sheet type markets or companies that are listed on another exchange that want to come list in America. So we do these a lot. What's different here is it's a healthy thriving company that's direct listing. And so that's got a lot of attention. The actual model is not particularly new, nor do I think it's good or bad. It just it just is. And Matthew went through, why would I go public as a company? I have unlimited, nearly he didn't say this, but nearly unlimited access to capital. We have a business that's doing quite well. But, you know, when they were over the the nail shop, these were people without husbands and wives, without mortgages, you know, cared less about having current income. All of a sudden now these people years later, they do care, you need to be able to create a liquid currency sounds familiar to Spotify, and you can imagine a company like that saying, well, geez, if I don't need to raise the dough, why would I raise the dough? If successful, what does it mean for the traditional investment bank? Yeah, this is a fun topic in the media to write about. In reality, we're talking about a tiny, tiny tail of companies that have unlimited access to capital that kind of fit in this criteria. I mean, it's maybe two hands, we could talk about them. And many of those would say, well, geez, I'm going public, I can raise the dough. I will raise the dough and I'll save it for a rainy day. So I don't think you're looking at a kind of a paradigm shift where this will be the new model. I suspect others would certainly look at it, but it's not going to be it's not going to be the model going forward. Other questions? OK, so I'm going to, because we are coming to the end, I'm going to have one last look at, because I think you've covered the ground very well of why this is happening. We spoke about the regulatory compliance burden, we spoke about the sources of capital. We then have looked a bit about how to balance short termism and corporate governance and ability to think long term. But let's push a little bit this question of what. And when I say the status quo, I don't mean exactly this year's status quo, but this broad trend that you go to IPO later and that you have a smaller number of big public companies rather than a lot of very small ones. What does that mean? You talked a bit about what it meant for society in terms of people not feeling they were they were part of the big exciting new companies. How problematic is that? Is that just something we'll talk about at Davos? Or is it actually going to become a problem for the underlying social sort of acceptance of capitalism, the people? And they will be part of it through institutional investors, as you said. Yeah, but I think, personally, my view is that people do look at, you know, are these companies making a few billionaires or many millionaires? And, you know, the society is more accepting of a larger set of millionaires than a few billionaires. And I think that is where that is merit in accessing the public market in a retail. So does this become part of the broader sort of tech clash backlash that people think this is, you know, a whole set of innovation that's been fitting a few people and not broadly? And this is one aspect of that. Well, I think maybe on the margin, because the companies you're going to see go public are going to already very often now be established leaders. There was a day when the small cap IPO you were kind of rooting for the little guy to compete against an Amazon or someone like that. And they were coming into the market. There's less of that. I mean, more of the companies are coming out. If they've won their market like a Spotify, for example. So so I think there may be some men on the margin. I think I'm not as worried about the whole thing. I mean, again, even you take a global view.  Capital formation is happening. Companies that need to access capital are getting it through the public markets. I think governance generally has improved dramatically in the over 20 years I've been doing this. I think the public markets have enforced additional and, you know, the New York Stock Exchange has been a leader in pushing for corporate governance as have many asset managers. So I'm more optimistic. You're optimistic. Excellent. Well, that's that's a very good note to end on.  I can ask what which big companies that are going to IPO in the next, let's say, two years that we should look out for. Airbnb. OK. What's going to be what you can answer the same question if you like, but also who else? Who are the target companies for companies like yours to buy now? Who are the next big ones of the sorts that you can tell us? Companies who are very innovative and more important for us is there is a higher synergy value than the standalone value of those companies. So that would be companies like you avoided the question. You know, you talked earlier about it. We didn't kind of elaborate and there's a level of clouding that you the word that you use, which essentially is that the valuation of some of those companies in private funding or alternate funding are seemingly higher than when they go on a public fund. And the reason is because when a large investor buys that company, the value that they see from their context in those companies is relatively higher than what a public listing would see on a standalone basis. And that's going to continue that people because of the sort of pace of technological change, people see specific technologies or specific that they're willing to pay above the odds for. Absurd, because the synergy effect is much bigger and people are willing to pay for that synergy effect. I'm going to have to ask you. So what are you going to are you going to do my favour and list on the New York Stock Exchange? I think he's doing me a favour. Oh, you're both together. No, I'd love to. That was all about doing deals. No, no, I'd love to. I think I'm a big believer in the public markets. There are obviously some flaws. I wouldn't be where I was without the public market. And I think there's more pluses than minus. I don't think a lot is going to change. And I think we've got a unique situation with this tech world. And so hopefully one day I'll be pressing the bell with or gone whatever he chooses me to press at the New York Stock Exchange. A lot of my friends are in the room on the stage that run private companies. They would all say I've never pressured anybody or suggested you should hurry up and do an IPO. When I'm pushing him is when you're ready, when you're ready, do it with us.  So you don't get out of my specific question. So what's going to be your most exciting IPO this year? What are you really hoping for? Well, we actually have the right now as we sit here, the largest Latin American technology IPO ever is pricing on the floor of the Stock Exchange, which is really exciting. It's a Brazilian payments company. They raised $2.3 billion last night. So that in and of itself is fun. We had one of the guests here mentioned Spotify direct listing if that comes to pass. And then the ones that are mentioned in the press a lot is happening within the next two years. I think the companies Airbnb, Uber, and Saudi Aramco have all said they intend to IPO next year. I was going to mention Aramco if you didn't.   What's that? I said, you're confident that you're going to get Saudi Aramco to list on the NYC? I didn't say that. I just said, you asked which IPOs am I excited to kind of be a part of and watch. And that's one of them. And I think obviously I have to ask you having we've just had a whole hour talking about IPOs. When's it going to happen? So my legal counsel told me I can't answer that. So I'll answer a different question. I think two big trends that could be sort of bit flip changes, not necessarily could be bit flip changes to watch. One, China doesn't yet have a sophisticated equity market, but they want one desperately. And there's a lot of pressure from the government on Chinese companies to move back home. And so I think that's one thing to watch that could really change US equity markets and other world equity markets. The second thing, which is more short term, is that the repatriation of cash that is being created by the change in tax policy is going to put an enormous amount of cash on the balance sheets of large tech companies that are already public. And there are really only a handful of things that they can do with that cash. They can invest in R&D. They can dividend it out. They can buy back their own shares, or they can go buy other companies. The answer is they'll do a little bit of all four of those things. And the process of them going out and using that capital, that could change how some of the later stage tech companies that are thinking about an IPO, that they might see that as an attractive option, especially if that pushes valuations. So you get bought by Apple rather than doing an IPO? Never know. I think with that, just to make it clear that I understood on the Chinese point, which is a really interesting point, you're talking about companies like Alibaba, the ones that are listing outside of China and now going back. Well, that is a tantalising point to end on. But I'm afraid we've come to the end of our time. Thank you all very much indeed. That was a really, really interesting question. Thank you.


I am Dr. Vinita Nakhshman, age 57 years and I am a professional doctor. I have done my MBBS and I used to work in Fortis Hospital, Rajaji Nagar. I was working and I was a very happy, go lucky person enjoying my work, enjoying my house. But one day I detected a small lump in my breast. I didn't want me to be diagnosed with cancer. So I kept postponing it. Finally it got so big that it was occupying the upper half of my left breast. So then I went to my sister. Features suggestive of breast cancer. The possibility of cancer is very high. So you need to go and take a biopsy. I was devastated. I should say the nightmare began. I got an MRI done and it came positive and there was one lymph node too. When I started my treatment I had to undergo chemotherapy where I met Dr. Poonam Patil and she gave me the instructions. It was almost three months of chemotherapy. Every 15 days I was taking the drip. It was very taxing. I can't lie about it because it is not a good feeling to be sick all the time. You can't eat anything. You can't do what you want to do. So I was confined to the bed and a little bit of exercise maybe. That's it and I could eat only two or three items of food. That's all.  I'm going to come out of this cancer-free. Then I was taken up for surgery. So the lymph nodes were actually, excavation was done of the axilla. All the lymph nodes were removed along with the lump and portion of the breast, even plastic surgery was done. So I underwent radiotherapy for 20 days and it was very smooth and they give you a new life. I was free. Absolutely no side effects. I was like a new made person. I caught my life back.  The treatment works wonders.   Do a self-exam every month of both the breast and report if anything unusual is felt. I thank Dr. Poonam Patil, Dr. Vardaraj and their teams who made this journey a smooth one. I'm back on my feet. I look after the house and have outings and lead a normal life.


Images make up most of the weight and file requests for most web pages. By optimizing images, you can make your website lighter and faster. If you compress images correctly, you don't need to compromise on the quality either. Here's our page. It uses a lot of imagery. Let's take a look at the lighthouse report. It tells me that I can save over 1.5 megabytes by optimizing some of the images. Let's do that. There are many optimizing tools. I am going to use Image Optim. First, I'll make three copies of my JPEG file to be able to test the difference. First, I optimize the image, preserving the same quality as the original. That saves about 50 kilobytes. The second image I optimize with 80% quality setting. That gives me over 250 kilobytes savings in the file size. Lastly, I optimize an image with 60% quality setting. Now the file is much, much smaller. Let's display these three images side by side. Can you see the difference? The difference is unnoticeable. I can go ahead and optimize all images in my folder with the 60% quality setting. Let's reload the page and check the network panel. Now all the images weigh only 1.3 megabytes. Did it influence the user experience on our site? Well, let's see the results. This screenshot strip in lighthouse looks much more reasonable right now. Users on 3G network can see the pictures load faster than the old site. Remember, for the web usage you can often optimize images heavily without reducing display quality. Thanks for watching and see you in the next episode. Check out our other videos for more tips on how to make your website even faster.