Goldman Sachs is one of the largest investment banking firms and IPO “bookrunners,” with banks paid millions of dollars for each listing they underwrite. But CEO David Solomon told attendees at the Cisco AI Summit in Palo Alto that startups should reconsider the idea of going public, the Financial Times reports.
Solomon said startups can similarly scale and obtain sufficient funding in the private markets without having to deal with the hassles of being a public company.
“It's not fun being a public company,” he said. “Who would want to become a publicly traded company?”
Goldman is increasingly working with large private companies, including backing Stripe in a $6.5 billion round in 2023. Stripe is part of a growing number of large, privately held technology companies that are deciding to remain private for a longer period of time.