Goldman nets a big payday for helping SpaceX go public. That's the headline. Goldman Sachs, a bank that employs thousands of people who went to better schools than you, will collect hundreds of millions of dollars for coordinating a process that mostly involves uploading PDFs to the SEC website and making PowerPoint decks with rocket clip art.
The work required is staggering. Someone had to schedule conference calls. Someone had to order lunch for those conference calls. Someone had to pretend Elon's tweets wouldn't tank the roadshow. These are the tasks that justify a fee structure last updated when fax machines were cutting-edge technology.
SpaceX builds reusable rockets that land themselves on drone ships in the ocean. Goldman builds Excel models that assume future revenue growth. One of these skills required decades of engineering innovation and physics mastery. The other required learning VLOOKUP and developing a tolerance for business casual.
The IPO will let retail investors finally get a piece of SpaceX at the exact moment institutional money has already priced in the next fifteen years of growth. You'll buy at $150. It'll open at $280. You'll panic sell at $190 three weeks later when Elon tweets a meme about Dogecoin at 2 AM. Goldman's fee cleared before the opening bell.
Every investment bank on Wall Street wanted this deal. They all submitted pitch books thicker than a phone book. They flew partners to Hawthorne to kiss the ring. Goldman won because they promised the biggest valuation with the straightest face. That's investment banking. Lying isn't the job. Believing your own lies is the job.
The Investing Club called this one of the week's winners, which makes sense if you think collecting a percentage of other people's money for essentially no ongoing obligation constitutes winning at capitalism rather than just being born into the right internship program.
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