SpaceX wants $1.8 trillion for an IPO. That's trillion with a T. The same letter that starts the word "theoretical" and "too late for you."
Early investors wrote checks when SpaceX was launching rockets that exploded on YouTube. They sat through meetings where Elon Musk explained reusable boosters while everyone else was still buying Palm Pilots. They watched their money disappear into the atmosphere. Literally. Multiple times.
Now those investors are about to book returns that will make every venture capital case study for the next fifty years. They'll give TED talks. They'll write memoirs with titles like "Betting on Tomorrow" that cost forty dollars in hardcover. They'll explain their investment thesis was always about the long-term vision and definitely not about throwing money at the loudest guy in the room.
You, on the other hand, bought shares of a company because someone on Reddit said the fundamentals looked good. You're still holding bags from a SPAC merger that promised to revolutionize urban air mobility. The stock ticker doesn't even exist anymore. It just redirects to a 404 page.
The venture capital firms that funded SpaceX in 2008 are now calculating paper gains that exceed the GDP of most countries. They took a chance on commercial space flight when the smartest move was supposed to be another social media app for college students. They ignored every consultant who said rockets were too hard and too expensive and too likely to explode.
But you're different. You've got a diversified portfolio of ETFs and a Robinhood account with fractional shares. You read the prospectus. You understood the risk. You're a sophisticated investor who's down 87% on a company that sells software to other software companies.
SpaceX investors are about to make venture capital history. You're about to explain to your spouse why the retirement account is in Treasury bills now.
Leave a Comment