The Gross Idolatry of Innovators  . . . by Innovators

When Apple filed to become a public company in 1980, “Steve Jobs” showed up in the S-1 paperwork (the form a company files with the SEC before going public) eight times. When Microsoft filed its prospectus in 1986, “Bill Gates” appeared twenty-three times. Jobs and Gates were both visionary founders and leaders who were already making the future, and were dominant figures at the companies they had founded.

Then there’s Adam Neumann. When his company WeWork filed to go public in 2019, “Adam” appeared 169 times in its prospectus. Many of those references described the complex self-dealing transactions he’d concocted to extract as much wealth as possible from investors. About a month after the S-1 filing, the IPO was canceled and Neumann was fired.

Neumann’s an extreme example, but the idolatry of innovators is all over recent IPO filings. The name of Affirm’s cofounder and CEO, Max Levchin, shows up 131 times in its S-1, and Robinhood’s cofounder and CEO, Vladimir Tenev, appears 109 times.

Our educational institutions, and an abundance of VC capital, are making it possible to succeed, wildly. In America, it’s never been easier to become a billionaire—but it’s never been harder to become a millionaire.

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Number of Mentions of Founder in S-1 Filings

Source: Prof G analysis of S-1 filings.