Thomas Laffont | All-In Summit 2024

Venture capital has a liquidity crisis despite healthy fundraising, with distributions to LPs near financial-crisis lows. Coatue counts roughly 1,500 private companies last valued above $1 billion, leaving an enormous backlog of unicorns still waiting for exits.

The IPO drought is historically extreme, not merely slow. Coatue said 2022, 2023 and 2024 each produced fewer IPOs than 2008–09 or 2001–02, while post-2020 IPOs destroyed about $225 billion in value against only $84 billion created.

Weak companies are increasingly surviving through defensive financings rather than clean new rounds or exits. Bridge and down rounds have risen from roughly 30% to almost 63% of financings, while the 2021 cohort’s refinancing-or-exit rate fell nearly by half versus 2016 and 2022 is tracking worse.

The venture model’s holding period has effectively doubled, sharply damaging returns even when eventual outcomes remain similar. Thomas described the old expectation as seven-to-ten-year liquidity; a leading Series A firm told him comparable fund performance stretched over twice the time cuts the resulting IRR roughly in half.

Bill Gurley privately told Thomas that investors themselves helped create the IPO blockage, and Thomas agreed. Their critique was that private capital and founder secondaries let mature companies remain private longer, while venture-backed boards also tolerated the behavior instead of forcing companies toward public-market discipline.

Late-stage startups now compete for capital against investments that can offer far better liquidity and proven economics. Thomas noted public investors could take roughly 5% risk-free, buy trillion-dollar technology companies growing above 15%, or choose AI companies growing 50–100%, forcing new listings to deliver profitability, growth and scale simultaneously.

Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi privately gave Thomas a striking operating number: a cloud business at roughly $500 million ARR that was near zero only a few years earlier. Ghodsi also asked him to emphasize that Databricks was growing above 60% while becoming more efficient despite continuing to burn cash.

One panelist said mishandling his Slack direct-listing exit cost him roughly $1.2–$1.24 billion. His lesson was painfully specific: he distributed his shares too late and, knowing the eventual price path, would have sold every share immediately rather than assuming waiting would produce a better outcome.