The new Web 2.0 companies didn’t need to raise as much money and, unlike just a few years previously, none of them were in any hurry to go public. In the wake of the bubble bursting, a wave of scandals involving companies such as Enron and WorldCom had ushered in a new era of financial regulations. The Sarbanes-Oxley legislation especially meant that there were fewer advantages to going public and more incentives to stay private for as long as possible. Without the venture capitalists breathing down their necks for a financial “exit,” the Web 2.0 companies were more in control of their own
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