Who cares if "instagram opens -30% on their first day"? As a company, your objective should be raising the capital you need at the least dilution, not burning money for the sake of some articles that everyone will forget in one week.
Who remembers what the pop or not was for <random ticker>? That's right, nobody.
Have you worked at a company that has gone public? It's a huge day for the company. Seeing the stock dip is a major morale killer, attributes to attrition, and can cause issues with hiring strong talent.
It's not the same, the company presumably still owns a lot of it's own stock post IPO, so a stronger share price will be way better for M&A for example, which is one of the many reasons a company may want to become publicly traded.
If you go by the efficient market hypothesis you would say that. I doubt that a universe where you open at $20 and rise by 100% gives you the same end state for all actors + price as a universe that opens at $200 and crashes by 80%. If you believe everything is priced in all the time I guess it makes sense.
The efficient market hypothesis doesn’t predict that everything is priced in all the time. It predicts that you can’t consistently beat the efficiency of market pricing over a long term. It doesn’t predict that short term volatility can’t exist.
Seriously, how is this still going on when literal billions of $ on the line are being squandered to Wall St. every year in IPO's? Especially from tech co's where generally people should have a bit more critical thinking for the end result.
Who remembers what the pop or not was for <random ticker>? That's right, nobody.