High priced IPOs piled up, are they fireworks of a bull market or a death knell? When investment banks start valuing companies that have not yet made a profit at billions, it means that there are no more bargains in the market. In November 1999, Italian power giant Enel raised $16.5 billion on the New York Stock Exchange. Five months later, AT&T Wireless raised another 10.6 billion yuan - the largest IPO in US history at the time. In March 2008, just days after Bear Stearns went bankrupt, Visa rang the bell against the trend and raised 17.9 billion yuan. In 2026, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic lined up to enter the market, with valuations becoming increasingly outrageous. Every time it's like this: before the collapse, there must be a grand IPO frenzy. --- 2000: The 'Last Fireworks' of Telecommunications Giants On the day AT&T Wireless went public, Wall Street genuinely believed that the telecommunications revolution could change the world. After all, the Internet, you have to go online. To access the internet, one must have base stations, fiber optic cables, and telecom operators. The logical chain is as clear as 1+1=2. On April 27, 2000, the fundraising amount of 10.6 billion US dollars broke the historical record, and the market was boiling. Based on the 586.1 billion market value of Microsoft, the largest U.S. stock company at that time, this 10.6 billion market value is almost the 50-80 billion scale of SpaceX today - the same scale, the same narrative. And then? Nasdaq rose slightly by 2% after one month, fell 2% in three months, fell 5% in six months, and halved by 46% in twelve months. Even darker and more humorous is that AT&T Wireless did not survive until the day when its stock price rose back. --- In 2008, before the heavy snowfall, someone was still ringing the bell The timing of Visa's listing can be considered as a form of performance art. On March 18, 2008, six months into the subprime crisis, Bear Stearns had just been acquired by JPMorgan Chase at a cabbage price of $2 per share - a year ago its stock price was still $170. Visa rings the bell, with $17.9 billion, the second largest IPO in US history. The voice at the time was: 'Visa is different. It is a payment network, not a lending institution, and is not affected by subprime mortgages.'. Visa did rise in the first few days of its listing, but then Lehman Brothers collapsed. The S&P 500 plummeted by over 50%. Of course, Visa eventually rose back and increased significantly. But you should know that this is not a rule, it's luck. AT&T Wireless doesn't have that kind of luck. The survivorship bias is the most expensive illusion in investment: you see Visa alive, but not AT&T Wireless dead. --- 2026: AI's' Trilogy of High Price IPOs' SpaceX。 OpenAI。 Anthropic。 Three companies, three narratives, the same logic: the future has arrived, it's too late if you don't get on the bus now. SpaceX talks about interstellar civilization, OpenAI talks about AGI, and Anthropic talks about safety. Every story is worth billions of dollars and cannot be explained by traditional valuation models. The year 2000 was the Internet foam, so the last big IPO was the telecom company - the infrastructure of the Internet. 2008 was a financial foam, so the last big IPO was Visa, the bottom network of payment. 2026 is the AI foam, so the final high price IPO is the AI company - so precise it is creepy. At the end of a bull market, there is a cruel rule: when the market cannot find cheap goods, it starts buying stories. The larger, more distant, and less falsifiable the story, the higher the valuation can be set. Internet, finance, AI - the ultimate narrative of each era will be priced to the extreme on the tail of the bull market. --- Why do sky high priced IPOs always appear at the top? Because those with first-hand information will always sell to you at the top. Founders and early investors are the most aware of the true value of a company. When do they choose to go public? At the highest valuation. When top companies in an industry collectively choose to go public during the same window period, it itself is a signal: insiders believe that this is the best price they can get. I After the burst of the Internet foam, Amazon survived and rose a thousand times. After the financial crisis, Visa also survived. AI is highly likely to survive and thrive. The question is: Who survived? The direction is right, the company is right, the time is wrong - still go back to zero. History says: A sky high IPO does not necessarily lead to a collapse, but there must have been a sky high IPO before the collapse. That was the case in 2000. That was the case in 2008. What about 2026? You can trust AI, but don't pay a premium for storytelling. You can participate in the IPO, but don't use money you can't afford to lose. You can believe in the future, but don't forget that AT&T Wireless' shareholders also believe in the future. Fireworks are beautiful. Just don't stand below when the show is over.