Venture capital has a very grim future if IPO's do not return. If you as a CEO want to be taken over, help create false valuations for the public to buy, and then be sold - go for it. If not, enjoy your career.

Anyone who raises capital from angels or VCs need IPOs. Anything that can increase the number of exits and value of exits is good for the entrepreneur.

The whole presentation seems like a rescue plan for the members of the IPO machine (I-banks, buy side, exchanges, law firms, accounting firms, VC firms) to restart their businesses. But the IPO path may turn out to be a poor way for successful startups to reward their founders - M&A or remaining a highly profitable private enterprise may be better.

It would be great if they could help reduce their 4th pillar, regulatory review & SOX compliance, as well as anything to reduce the approximately $1M/qtr fee for being publicly listed. All this extra overhead adds little value and can be a big impact for a small but growing biz, one with revenues of less than $20M/yr.

Having served on the board of a NASDAQ company I can attest to the fact that being a public company is a hugh distraction for management and a continuing drain on resources that could better be spent on growth. The exception is if this is the "liquidity event" that you have been waiting for.... then go for it. However, if this is just a way for your investors to prematurely dump some of their equity and it really is not beneficial to the company in terms of having additional captial then there is no reason toconvert to public status. Being public brings only two things. Capital if you can get a good price for new shares and headaches dealing with the reporting requirements and pressures placed on management by public stockholders.

I am generally with NVCA that IPOs should return. It's not only good for the VCs and enterpreneuers, but it's good for the public, too, to own equity in young, innovative and disruptive companies. The relative risk is way overblown: look at how stale and supposedly "safe" companies like GM and LEH bombed out on their shareholders. Owning equity in old and ossified behemoths is by no means taht much safer than owning recent IPO shares.

The regulation reqs. can be good, too; being public, with all its disclosure requirements could be beneficial to a company, as a public corrective on executive incompetence and dishonesty. However, regulation needs to be smart and efficient. Overburdening the companies with paperwork and controls is not productive. My understanding about Srab-Ox is that it is so anal in some regards, that cos. need to account for every paperclip, while still leaving large holes and opportunities for executive transgression and mischief. Some reform will likely be needed.

@startupidea - Completely dead on. We were a $100MM company that was public and went private to save the SOX compliance nightmare. The burden is just to great and prevents many awesome companies from going public. Spend $2-4MM in compliance a year for the privilege of a one time capital raise and exit?!? Worse than debt. It also robs mom and pop investors the opportunity of getting into small high growth companies.