Why Secondary Markets Are Eating the IPO | All-In Liquidity Secondary Markets Panel
Episode Details
The panel discusses how Secondary markets are booming and effectively replacing the traditional IPO process. Brad Gerstner, Gavin Baker of Atreides Management, and Kelly Rodriques, CEO of Forge, along with Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya, analyze why companies like SpaceX, anthropic, Anduril, and OpenAI are staying private longer. A key theme is the Democratization of Finance. Kelly Rodriques highlights how Forge partnered with Charles Schwab to offer Retail Investors access to private equity, transitioning away from high-fee SPVs. New vehicles like the Interval Fund and Closed-End Funds provide access, though investors must avoid pure FOMO. Meanwhile, SEC rules and pressure from Lina Khan have chilled M&A, forcing venture capitalists to rely on secondaries to generate DPI. Once they sell, they report these moves via forms like the 13F. Institutional giants like Fidelity, Bailey Gifford, Capital Research, Wellington Management, and T. Rowe Price face regulatory caps on private allocations, creating massive demand for future public listings. The speakers discuss the pitfalls of private markets. Gavin Baker notes that Elon Musk runs disciplined liquidity programs at SpaceX, but many founders suffer in an echo chamber. He shares an anecdote about Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, where private market sycophancy led to a costly detour into HTML5 instead of building native Mobile Apps, a mistake driven by early internal debates with Brett Taylor. Public market scrutiny, while harsh, enforces vital discipline. Looking for future opportunities in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and beyond, the panelists share their top picks. Brad Gerstner highlights Sierra, an AI company founded by Brett Taylor, and European competitor Parlo, both potential acquisition targets for Meta or Google. Chamath Palihapitiya is bullish on Revolut, a neo-bank pitched to him by Thomas Laffont. Gavin Baker points to DriveNets for solving Data Centers networking issues and German automation firm Neura Robotics. Finally, Jason Calacanis notes his late-stage investments in Vast Space and Zipline, an Autonomous Drones company led by Keller Rinaudo Cliffton that is transforming logistics and global healthcare delivery.
The episode explores the shift from traditional IPOs to a robust secondary market, where late-stage private companies remain private longer to avoid public market scrutiny. Panelists highlight the democratization of finance through new investment vehicles like interval funds, while cautioning against the risks of retail investors chasing FOMO-driven valuations in private assets.
Portfolio lens: A thematic basket focused on the structural shift toward private market liquidity and the underlying infrastructure/application layer of the AI super-cycle.
Generated with gemini-flash-lite-latest on 6/27/2026, 5:16:54 AM. For research only. Not financial advice.Secondary Market Infrastructure
The institutionalization of secondary markets is creating a new, durable asset class that provides liquidity for employees and venture funds while offering retail access to private companies.
Secondary volume has doubled since the 2021 peak, and partnerships between platforms like Forge and major custodians like Charles Schwab are standardizing the process.
- Secondary transactions now represent 31% of all primary venture activity.
- Secondary shares are trading at a premium (106 cents on the dollar) compared to historical discounts.
- New products like interval funds and closed-end funds are enabling non-accredited investor participation.
- Increased adoption of standardized secondary trading platforms by major retail brokerages.
- Potential SEC regulatory changes regarding 'sophisticated investor' tests.
- Valuation bubbles in private assets that lack the price discovery of public markets.
- Regulatory pushback on SPVs and private market access vehicles.
- Lack of transparency compared to public company filings.
- Analyze the fee structures and liquidity terms of interval funds.
- Monitor SEC rulemaking on private market access.
AI Infrastructure and Networking
As data centers become more specialized for AI, the 'disaggregation' of inference and networking creates a super-cycle for companies solving infrastructure bottlenecks.
The panel identifies a need to reinvent networking to handle specialized AI chips, favoring companies that can make disparate hardware work together efficiently.
- Gavin Baker notes that networking and silicon are the core of the impending AI infra super-cycle.
- Increasingly specialized chips require new networking architectures to function as a 'symphony'.
- Continued scaling of AI data centers by hyperscalers.
- M&A activity from large tech firms seeking to optimize their AI stacks.
- Technological obsolescence if a single architecture becomes dominant.
- High capital expenditure requirements for hardware firms.
- Binary risk for smaller infrastructure players.
- Diligence the competitive moat of networking disaggregation providers.
- Track data center capex trends.
Agentic AI Software
Agent-native software companies are positioned to disrupt incumbent SaaS by automating complex workflows, making them prime acquisition targets for large tech platforms.
The shift toward agentic layers in sales, marketing, and customer service represents a new frontier in AI application that incumbents may prefer to acquire rather than build.
- Sierra and Parlo are highlighted as leaders in the agent-native space.
- Large tech firms are actively looking for ways to accelerate their agentic capabilities.
- Acquisition interest from large tech incumbents like Meta or Google.
- Rapid adoption of agentic workflows by enterprise customers.
- Evisceration of business models if foundation model providers (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic) release native agent features.
- High valuation multiples for early-stage AI software.
- Evaluate the 'agent-native' vs 'wrapper' distinction for these companies.
- Assess the sustainability of their revenue growth.
Watchlist
- Revolut
- DriveNets
- Arya
- Neura Robotics
- Vast Space
- Zipline
- Sierra
- Parlo
Open Questions
- How will the SEC's proposed 'sophisticated investor' test impact the volume of retail capital flowing into private markets?
- Will the 'disaggregation' of networking hardware lead to a fragmented market or a new set of dominant standards?
- To what extent are current private market valuations supported by fundamental revenue growth versus speculative liquidity?
Key Topics & People
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Large facilities housing servers and GPUs for AI compute, which are increasingly hard to power and zone.
Investor and podcast guest discussing space, IPOs, and technology markets.
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Investor and podcast host analyzing AI infrastructure, politics, and markets.
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Investor and podcast host moderating discussions on startups and tech markets.
Financial services firm mentioned as providing retail access to the SpaceX IPO.
Investor who presented at the Liquidity conference.
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CEO of Forge, a platform for secondary market transactions.
A pooled investment fund with a customized share structure, acting similarly to a mutual fund but often driven by retail FOMO for private assets.
An independent investment partnership known for long-term growth equity investing that faces SEC caps on private holdings.
An investment management organization mentioned as a large long-only fund constrained by SEC private asset rules.
A global asset management firm investing in late-stage private companies.
A private, independent investment management firm capped in its private holdings.
Native applications developed for mobile operating systems like iOS and Android.
Former Facebook CTO and founder of Sierra who argued for HTML5 early in Facebook's history.
A German company focused on AI-powered logistics robotics.
Founder and CEO of Zipline, responsible for deploying drone delivery in Africa and the US.
Unmanned aerial vehicles utilized for logistics and medical deliveries.
An aerospace company building space stations.
Technological field experiencing a super cycle in infrastructure, models, and secondary investments.
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CEO of Meta/Facebook, discussed in the context of operating as a private versus public CEO and learning from the HTML5 mistake.
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A type of investment company that periodically offers to repurchase its shares, used to provide access to private markets.
Individual investors buying and selling securities for their personal accounts.
The movement to give ordinary retail investors access to financial markets and private assets previously restricted to institutions.
An investment firm founded by Gavin Baker that is actively investing in secondary markets and late-stage privates.
Investor and host on the podcast who presents data on secondary markets and liquidity.
Markets where investors buy and sell previously issued shares of private companies, which are now competing with IPOs.