IPOs, Dotcoms, AI, $FIG, Awake OJ cans and my grandfather
Posted By RichC on August 2, 2025
It is interesting how certain things trigger long ago memories so clearly. I could see this can of Awake Orange Juice (with the orange lid) 
from the 1960s clearly in my mind. Likely I remember these cans from a container to store spare bolts and nuts or parts, but I also recall something else my Grandpa Bluhm would do with them — use them flattened out to store currency in … then stored in an old paint can down in his basement workshop (depression era thinking).
The topic came up when Taylor and I had a text chat last week about the Figma Inc. IPO — Ticker $FIG. Having been through a few questionable cycles of IPO excitement before, I mention that artificial intelligence IPOs reminded me a little bit of investing in Dotcom IPOs and e-commerce startups in the late 1990s. Every company wanted to marketed a connection to the investors wanting in on the growth potenital of the Internet … often there wasn’t much behind them beside the Dotcom name (and no Brenda, I’m not suggesting you didn’t build a fine Rx fulfillment facility … it was impressive. Too bad the buyer CVS didn’t see it that way)! 😉
I’m not discounting today’s “artificial intelligence” related IPOs or suggesting the excitement isn’t real … but often it is difficult to know whether companies are raising capital and have something real … or if they are raising money because investors are willing to give it to them? First day interest has often faded in years past, but “because of a 3-year bottleneck, tech IPO investors have been starved for new deals” as one analyst put it. Who knows … 🤷
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