How mega-IPOs could reshape the public market—and the economy

Nelson Griggs, Nasdaq’s president and head of its Capital Access Platforms Division, sat down with Fast Company senior writer Ainsley Harris during this year’s Innovation Festival to discuss how the new era of mega-IPOs could reshape industries, the public stock market, and the economy. In June, SpaceX entered the stock market with a record-breaking initial public offering (IPO), just days after Anthropic, the company behind Claude, announced its proposed IPO, which could have a $2 trillion valuation, according to Bloomberg. OpenAI, ChatGPT’s maker, has been right behind its rival, though as of this week, new concerns around AI’s safety risks have led the company to pump the brakes, Fortune reported. Meanwhile, Perplexity AI is eyeing an IPO in 2028. A comeback for public listings? The companies are entering the market as investors shift toward privately held assets. Greater access to private capital in recent years has resulted in fewer companies going public, according to Morgan Stanley, and the number of publicly listed companies, which peaked at roughly 8,000 in 1996, has dropped to about 4,000. Now, there’s concern that these mega-IPOs could crowd out smaller companies that d…