All-In

The IPO Comeback: Why Tech Giants Are Finally Going Public | All-In Liquidity IPO Panel

with Andrew Feldman (Cerebras), Will Marshall (Planet Labs), and Brad Gerstnor (Altimeter Capital)
6 Jun 2026 9 min read 1h 32m
TL;DR

2026 is shaping up as a record IPO year driven by AI silicon (Cerebras) and space data (Planet Labs). The key insight: most venture returns are made post-IPO, not before, so going public sooner at lower valuations—rather than staying private until mega-unicorn status—allows public market investors to capture the majority of value creation.

Key Moments
Andrew Feldman
“I I think you do all this work and I I think it's really difficult to to overestimate the amount of garbage that's involved in in going public. the number of meetings where you you look on the the Zoom and there are 130 attendees and the amount of times you review these documents and the commas move and and just no value added.”
Reflecting on the IPO process three weeks after Cerebras went public
▶ 3:23
Will Marshall
“Space and AI are really um a match made in heaven. They're getting married. In fact, just like Google figured out how to index the internet and make it searchable, we are indexing the earth and making it searchable.”
Introducing Planet Labs' mission and the convergence of space and AI technology
▶ 0:21
Will Marshall
“we did a study with uh our partners at Google about eight or nine years ago uh looking at what are the costs of data centers on the ground, what are the costs that it would take to put them in space and when might it make sense to uh do it non-aterrestrially. And we figured out that when launch costs come down to about $200 to $300 a kilogram um uh it would be cheaper, just simply cheaper to put the data centers in space.”
Explaining the economics behind space-based data centers and why they become viable at lower launch costs
▶ 15:25
Andrew Feldman
“The hard part here, the hard part is moving data from memory to compute. And we solved it with a way that that very few others had even attempted, which was to build a very big chip and to put memory right next to compute. And by building a big chip, a chip the size of a dinner plate, whereas most chips are the size of a postage stamp, we could use a different type of memory.”
Detailing Cerebras' architectural innovation that differentiates it from GPU-based competitors
▶ 23:19
Brad Gerstnor
“I I think historically more money's made after IPO than before. I I think every single study shows that uh there is more money to be made both in percentage and in in what we care about which is absolute.”
Advising VCs and LPs on why holding shares post-IPO tends to generate greater returns than distributing immediately
▶ 27:40
About the show
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All-In is a podcast featuring conversations with technology leaders and innovators discussing market trends and the future of tech. This episode focuses on two newly public AI and space companies navigating the IPO landscape in 2026, alongside venture capital perspectives on when and how startups should go public.
Takeaways
1
Domain-specific silicon is reshaping AI hardware competition Cerebras rejected the GPU arms race by building a dinner-plate-sized chip with collocated memory and compute, achieving 15-18x faster inference than GPUs. This architecture bet—impossible to compete on via GPU design alone—illustrates how new workloads force share redistribution in processor markets, similar to how graphics workloads created Nvidia and mobile compute created ARM dominance.
2
Space-based data centers become cost-competitive in 2-3 years Planet Labs projects space data centers will undercut terrestrial facilities once launch costs drop to $200-300/kg (currently ~$1,000/kg). The advantage: solar panels in sun-synchronous orbit deliver 5x more power per panel than ground-based equivalents without battery or gas backup costs. Starship trajectory suggests this inflection point arrives by 2028-2029.
3
Going public sooner captures more venture upside for LPs Planet Labs' 10x post-IPO rally demonstrates that 90% of value creation often occurs after public listing, not before. Brad Gerstnor and Andrew Feldman both argue VCs should hold shares post-lockup and that founders should target earlier IPOs at $1-5B valuations rather than chase $50B+ mega-rounds, allowing public market investors to capture the majority of returns.