Cherry Valley Native’s
IPO Market Exposé the
Culmination of Two-Year Effort

By TED MEBUST

CHAPEL HILL, NC – If you were walking along Pioneer Street in the early 2000s and happened upon “The Freeman’s Journal” offices near Main Street center, you’d find a young editor hard at work. Dakin Campbell, a member of Cooperstown High School’s class of 1995, was launching a burgeoning career in journalism. At that time, the Cornell University graduate could be found diligently reporting on the events of local town and county board meetings. Today, as chief financial correspondent for “Business Insider,” Campbell’s investment has paid off in dividends.

After receiving his master’s in journalism from Columbia University, Campbell began working for “Bloomberg News,” where his foray into the financial world took off. Later moving to “Business Insider,” he wrote an article in 2019 covering the near collapse of WeWork during its public debut, which would become a major driving force behind his venture into long-form writing. Considering his expert analysis of WeWork’s initial public offering, book agents began requesting Campbell delve deeper into the topic, a prospect that “certainly interested” him. He published his findings of the IPO process this past July in his book, “Going Public: How Silicon Valley Rebels Loosened Wall Street’s Grip on the IPO and Sparked a Revolution.”

“I like diving into the little corners of the financial sector, learning as much as possible about them, and demystifying what I find for my readers,” Campbell expressed.

An IPO, for the uninitiated, refers to the first time a company sells shares to public market investors. Successful companies take their shares to public markets to access a much broader group of investors. Historically, this process involves a valuation of the company’s share prices by Wall Street investment banks. However, these behemoth institutions don’t consult public buyers when deciding this price.

“A lot of the IPO process is an insider’s game,” Campbell described.

Working solely with mutual fund and hedge fund giants, Wall Street investment banks have been deciding companies’ futures for over a century. In recent years, however, some companies have been challenging this system. Campbell’s book describes the revolutionary path those companies have taken to reclaim agency in the IPO process.

Campbell’s story revolves around influential characters in the tech and finance worlds, such as Barry McCarthy, former chief financial officer at Spotify. Campbell noted that throughout the process of writing his book, “asking powerful and successful people simple questions” helped him achieve a larger goal of the project—democratizing financial expertise.

“For the average reader, understanding it all [the IPO process] is critical knowledge and good to have in order to understand how to make the right investments,” he explained.

Campbell works and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with his wife and two children. The process of writing the book, he noted, required many extracurricular hours.

“I would do my research and writing at 5 a.m. before the kids woke up and spend time during the weekend at UNC’s library,” he said. “I’m very thankful for my wife’s support during that time.”

Campbell’s book is available for order at dakincampbell.com.