When private beat public

Five charts to start your day

Let me share a fascinating shift in American business that's happened since the year 2000. Back at the start of this century, the stock market was dominated by public companies – about 7,000 of them, while there were only 2,000 significant private companies. That's what you'd expect, right? After all, going public was seen as the natural path for successful businesses.

But look at what happened by 2021 – it's completely flipped! The number of public companies actually shrank to 4,805, while private companies exploded to nearly 10,000. That's more than quadrupled in just two decades.

What's particularly striking is how this represents a fundamental shift in how American business operates. Companies are increasingly choosing to stay private rather than deal with the complexities and scrutiny of public markets.