IPO-envy made ordinary investors more susceptible to outright scams

Evidence

Magical thinking didn’t just fuel the supply of fraudsters; it also created a ready audience of marks believing they could get rich quick on entrepreneurs’ backs. For every aspiring CEO hoping to become a billionaire, dozens of would-be investors hoped to cash in early and reap millions. Each IPO enriched a few capitalists and gave everyone else a new case of FOMO (fear of missing out). This hunger left them more susceptible to threadbare scams. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 573

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: ‘The mark economy’ — how the omnivore monoculture’s shared aspiration for wealth creates both the fraudster and the willing victim, collapsing the supply-demand distinction in fraud.