A friend recently asked about posts I wrote two months ago summarizing the IPO filings of Instacart and Klaviyo. Specifically, he asked why I spent time reading through hundreds of pages for each company. Couldn’t I have gotten the same understanding from reading summary articles in the financial press—the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg?

I wanted to determine the strength of each underlying business for myself before they went public. Whenever I’m evaluating something, I aim to come to my own conclusions. Therefore, I try to find first-source data, not interpretations by people removed from the situation. These filings, while long, were great first-source data. They laid out facts and numerical data relevant to all facets of each business, helping me to reach a conclusion about each company with a high degree of conviction. 

I could have saved time by reading summaries in the financial press or listening to the opinions of others. But I wouldn’t have had as good an understanding of each business, might have missed critical things because others overlooked them, and wouldn’t have had strong conviction in the evaluation of each business because I hadn’t done the work myself.