Glenn Beck on Bill Gates & Apple

The company mixup aside, Beck actually has a point. While starting up a privately held company is not a problem, going public has become a major pain due to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Keeping up with SOX compliance is a major pain in the neck and creates a huge workload. While it doesn't technically prevent a startup, it does make going public a lot more difficult. There is a reason why companies like Twitter and Facebook are still privately held.

 

I can think of a couple of additional reasons:
1. A promising company in the technology sector today is much more likely to be bought out and absorbed into an existing company then allowed to mature on its own as a public or private company.

2. There are so many patents out there that bringing a technology product to market is a mine field of intellectual rights lawsuits and licensing agreements that few small companies could navigate it.

 

All the respondents in this thread have brought up interesting points, but if you actually watch the episode, you'll see that Beck is blaming this on Obama as usual.

 

Yeah, both of those are true. This whole lawsuit mania in the IP field is crazy. Just look at all the lawsuits flying in the cell phone market. All the major players are suing each other over intellectual property. Your first point is also true, as it sometimes seems some of these companies' main goal is to be bought out by a major player.