Being public without being public
How Stripe rewrote the rules of staying private at scale
Time: 3.40 Minutes
Stripe just hit a $140 billion valuation. No IPO. No quarterly earnings calls. No Wall Street circus.
And they found a great way to be a public company without being public.
Since 2024, Stripe has run recurring tender offers as a standing liquidity program for employees and early investors. Co-founder John Collison says they’re still not in any rush to go public.
At $140 billion, the rush is hard to see for them.
This isn’t a waypoint to an IPO. It’s becoming a substitute for one.
The smartest move: they solved the only real reason companies go public in the first place → employee liquidity.
If Stripe can keep running tenders at rising valuations every six to nine months, it removes the single strongest argument for going public.
This lesson isn’t just about finance.
It’s about control. Going public means answering to everyone.
Staying private and engineering your own liquidity means you keep building the way you want.
Stripe chose the latter. And the market is rewarding them for it.
So think about who you want to answer and stay curious.
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