This is Bloomberg's interview with Dave, an equity capital markets (ECM) head (formerly at KKR), against the backdrop of the second day of trading after SpaceX completed the largest IPO in history.

He is extremely bullish on the IPO market: SpaceX closed up 19% above its offer price on day one and rose another ~15% on day two (with news of an Iran 'peace deal' also lifting the broader market that day). He argues this cycle differs from past 'issuance for issuance's sake' cycles because there are real catalysts and investment themes behind it — the 'reindustrialization of America': ecosystems like space and AI that ordinary people previously couldn't invest in at all are now becoming investable assets, so the IPO market's 'frenzy' is reasonable and appropriate. To those still hesitating over 'it's up 20%, should I still chase it,' his answer is 'keep buying,' because this may be a generational transformational business.

He stresses that it's 'not just mega-IPOs': setting SpaceX aside, total new issuance this year is nearly double the same period last year, with the bulk coming from other sectors like healthcare, biotech, industrials, and energy — the market is 'firing on all cylinders.' The host points out an interesting phenomenon: nearly every industry now has to attach an AI narrative — if you're a power company and the bottleneck happens to be power, you have an AI story; a company's TAM is either 'infinite' because there's AI behind it, or 'zero' because it's traditional software that AI might disrupt. He thinks the market hasn't shut the door on other issuers; the key is pricing and 'getting a good starting point in the public market,' and he advises clients to 'put the puck on the ice and get going,' because the public market's 'proof point' is worth more than the private market's.

On the closely watched mega-IPOs (Anthropic, OpenAI), he sees SpaceX's strong reception as a bullish signal: SpaceX is a 'one-of-a-kind' space player, but is essentially also an 'AI play,' and a deal this large trading this well will give the next wave of issuance more confidence. Pressed on 'is this another dot-com (valued on sales, not yet profitable),' he acknowledges SpaceX is indeed being priced on a multiple of 2025 sales and does have a dot-com feel, but insists SpaceX is a 'separate species' that must be viewed through the different lens of the 'space economy,' and that the overall market hasn't been broadly priced aggressively (unlike 2021's record-high software valuations), resting more on fundamentals and growth. On worries about 'circular financing' (companies buying from / investing in each other's upstream and downstream chip makers), his answer is clever: 'What lets me sleep well is precisely that we're discussing it openly' — everyone is dissecting it and doing due diligence, which shows the cycle still has room to continue; what could truly derail a cycle is unknown risk, not known risk.

Finally on capital formation: he notes Google (Alphabet) raised nearly $90 billion in one go across multiple instruments, precisely demonstrating the depth and capacity of the public market — as long as a company can show ROI and a reasonable use of proceeds, the market can absorb it, and mega-scale financing won't necessarily 'oversaturate.' For companies that lack super cash flows yet must keep pouring money into buildouts, he advises watching 'contracted / signed demand,' checking whether what they're investing in now can generate reasonable returns in three to five years and bridge to free cash flow. He expects a fairly active issuance pipeline in the second half, especially more private-equity-backed companies going public.

(For AI investors: this is a front-line investment-bank perspective, explaining why the mega-IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI are more likely to land smoothly after SpaceX, and how the 'AI capital cycle' is sweeping sectors like healthcare, energy, and industrials into the issuance boom — 'power is the bottleneck' is becoming a universal AI selling point; it also confronts the twin concerns of circular financing and high valuations head-on. Can be read against the SpaceX interpretations of Prof G and Cathie Wood in this same library.)