The Pop

What really happens when a company goes public?

"The Pop" is a new podcast from Superstate. In each episode, Robert Leshner and industry-leading guests take us deeper into America’s IPO machine: why companies go public, how deals get priced, what happens behind the first trade, and why the IPO market is changing.

Season One features conversations with market veterans, regulators, bankers, and builders on the mechanics of going public, the role of “the pop,” and the future of capital markets. By the end, viewers will understand the end-to-end IPO process. The good, the bad, the ugly. The past, the present, the future.

First episodes coming soon. 


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About Superstate
Superstate partners with issuers to bring securities onchain, enabling access to new investor capital and modern financial markets. Through Opening Bell, Superstate partners with companies issuing tokenized equity. Through FundOS, it serves asset managers launching tokenized funds. Both platforms support compliant issuance, record keeping, direct investor registration, and onchain market integration via their SEC-registered transfer agency infrastructure. Superstate's flagship funds USTB and USCC validated this infrastructure at institutional scale before transitioning to leading asset managers on FundOS. 

Disclaimer:
This podcast is produced by Superstate Inc., a Delaware corporation and parent company of Superstate Advisers LLC, a registered investment adviser with the SEC, and Superstate Services LLC, a registered transfer agent.

Nothing contained in this podcast should be construed as investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell any security, or an offer to provide investment advisory services. All information is presented for educational and informational purposes only. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Guests and the host may have financial interests in or use products and services offered by Superstate. This podcast does not establish a fiduciary or advisory relationship between Superstate Advisers LLC and any listener.

Securities discussed involve significant risks, including potential loss of principal. Markets are volatile and subject to regulatory changes. Please consult with a qualified financial advisor, attorney, or accountant before making any investment decisions.

For more information, visit the SEC at www.sec.gov or investor.gov to verify Superstate's registration status.

Creators and Guests

Host
Robert Leshner
Robert Leshner is the founder and CEO of Superstate, a firm building modern infrastructure for public and private capital markets through tokenized securities. Before Superstate, he created Compound, one of the earliest decentralized finance protocols, helping define how onchain financial markets operate today.
Guest
Alaoui Zenere
Alaoui Zenere is a Managing Director in the Equity Capital Markets (ECM) group at J.P. Morgan. She heads the Financials, FinTech and Real Estate teams within ECM. In her current role, she advises clients and executes initial public offerings (IPO) and secondary offerings. During her tenure in ECM, landmark transactions Alaoui worked on include: Circle $1.2bn IPO, Robinhood $2.3bn IPO and Coinbase Direct Listing.
Guest
Bill Hinman
Bill Hinman currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, as well as an Advisory Partner of Andreessen Horowitz, and a Senior Advisor to the &vest group. Mr. Hinman served as the Director of the Division of Corporation Finance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from May 2017 through December of 2020.
Guest
Joe Gawronski
Joe Gawronski is the CEO of Rosenblatt Securities, an agency-only institutional brokerage focused on execution and market structure, and a major presence on the NYSE trading floor.
Guest
Omid Malekan
Omid Malekan teaches and lectures on blockchain, stablecoins, and crypto market structure. An eight-year crypto industry veteran and author of books including Re-Architecting Trust, he is a frequent media commentator on how crypto intersects with public markets, including what drives crypto companies’ IPO plans and how regulation and market plumbing shape the path to listing.

What is The Pop?

Inside America’s IPO Machine

The Pop is a podcast examining the science and hidden machinery of how companies go public and how markets actually work in the United States. Hosted by Robert Leshner, a founder and operator building infrastructure for modern capital markets, the show breaks down IPOs and listings from the S-1 to the first trade – exploring how incentives are structured, where the system breaks down, and who it ultimately serves. Through high-signal, story-first conversations with founders, executives, investors, lawyers, and regulators, The Pop looks at the good, the bad, and the ugly of going public, and what the next era of capital formation could look like.

Joe Gawronski:

It's ultimately your stock. It's your stock price. Just saying, oh, well, they can handle it. They're experts. I don't think it's the right route to go.

Alaoui Zenere:

It's a fine line. It's a balance. It's an art more than science.

Robert Leshner:

Welcome to The Pop, a new podcast from Superstate about America's IPO machine. I'm your host, Robert Leshner. On this show, we're going inside the IPO process. To most people, an IPO looks simple. A company files, a deal prices, the stock opens, the market reacts.

Robert Leshner:

But behind that first train is a much more complicated story. We start with three basic questions. One, why do companies go public?

Bill Hinman:

It gives the employees liquidity, and it gives a company a a source of new capital.

Joe Gawronski:

Access to capital is one reason. Having a currency prestige.

Robert Leshner:

But deciding to go public is only the beginning. The harder question is whether a company is ready. The goal is to understand the IPO not as a single event, but as a sequence of decisions, many of which happen outside of public view.

Alaoui Zenere:

All this is a pretty well oiled machine, and there is actually, like, a a lot of actors. Everyone has their own purpose and mission to be able to deliver a best in class IPO.

Bill Hinman:

The journey is typically a pretty long one. Companies end up knowing themselves better at the end of that than they did at the beginning.

Robert Leshner:

And then there's the part that everyone talks about,

Joe Gawronski:

the pop. You want it to go up, not down.

Robert Leshner:

But the pop is only one piece of the story. A successful IPO isn't just about the first trade. It's about what happens after.

Alaoui Zenere:

What is not being communicated in the press is what is the quality of the order book.

Joe Gawronski:

You can become a broken IPO right out of the gate, you know, through bad allocation. That happens. And then

Robert Leshner:

you can become a broken IPO six months from when you went public. The IPO market is also changing. Companies are staying private longer. Private markets are larger and more liquid, and the IPO process has become more expensive and complex.

Bill Hinman:

The longer companies stay private, the more, you know, very significant growth occurs in private markets and not are not available to the retail investor.

Robert Leshner:

So the Pop is not just about how IPOs work today. It's about how public markets could work next and whether new infrastructure can change what it means to go public.

Omid Malekan:

Blockchain is a technology that eliminates almost all the frictions and creates a almost like a blank whiteboard of what is now possible for capital markets.

Robert Leshner:

This season starts with the IPO as it exists today and ends by asking what the next version of capital markets could become. This is The Pop.