Comment by paxys

People don't realize that a day 1 "pop" in share price of an IPO (sometimes 100% or more, like some of the recent ones) benefits only wall street, not the company itself. Big banks are, therefore, incentivized to underprice IPOs as much as they can get away with. And employees themselves are subject to long lockup periods. With the recent success of direct listings, cutting them out of the process is a logical step.