The New York Times: The need for a new public company experience

As the Long-Term Stock Exchange (LTSE) continues to make major strides toward becoming a new public markets option for companies and investors, an increasing number of market participants are recognizing the pitfalls of the status quo — and the need for a solution.

Today, Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times declares that public stock markets are fundamentally broken and refers to the LTSE as “perhaps the most ambitious and provocative effort” to address this issue. The column quotes CEOs of prominent private companies — from Slack to Blue Bottle Coffee — who share their reluctance to take their companies public under the current paradigm. And it’s not just lip service — we’re seeing this play out in the numbers, with a roughly 50% decline in the number of public companies from 1996 to 2016.

While other proposed solutions target the IPO process, the LTSE’s mission is to transform the public company experience by relieving the short-term pressures that plague today’s businesses and laying the foundation for a healthier public market ecosystem.

We’re thrilled about our progress to date, and we look forward to sharing some exciting updates in the coming months. As Sorkin says, what’s happening now is “just the tip of the iceberg."