Top 100 Greatest IPOs of All Time

1997 | NASDAQ | $18/share

Jeff Bezos took an online bookstore public at a $438 million valuation. Investors who held from IPO day have seen returns exceeding 200,000%. The defining IPO of the internet age and the single greatest wealth-creation event from a public offering in history.

Bezos warned investors in the prospectus that the company may never be profitable. The stock dropped 95% during the dot-com bust before its legendary ascent.

1980 | NASDAQ | $22/share

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's personal computer company went public at a $1.8 billion valuation, creating more instant millionaires (about 300) than any prior IPO. Apple would go on to become the world's first $3 trillion company.

The IPO sold out in minutes. Jobs, who was only 25, became worth $217 million overnight. A $1,000 investment at IPO would be worth over $1.5 million today (split-adjusted).

2004 | NASDAQ | $85/share

Larry Page and Sergey Brin defied Wall Street convention by using a Dutch auction IPO, letting the market set the price instead of investment bankers. Raised $1.67 billion and valued the company at $23 billion. One of the greatest-performing IPOs of the 21st century.

The original IPO filing targeted $2,718,281,828 -- the mathematical constant 'e' times a billion. Classic Google nerd humor.

1986 | NASDAQ | $21/share

Bill Gates took Microsoft public at a $519 million valuation, making him a multimillionaire overnight. The stock would go on to make Gates the world's richest person for decades. The IPO that proved software was king.

A $1,000 investment at IPO would be worth over $3 million today. Gates owned 45% of the company at the time of the offering.

2012 | NASDAQ | $38/share

The most anticipated tech IPO in history. Mark Zuckerberg's social network debuted at a $104 billion valuation -- the largest tech IPO ever at the time. Despite a rocky first day plagued by NASDAQ glitches and a 50% post-IPO decline, long-term holders have been richly rewarded.

Zuckerberg famously wore his hoodie to the pre-IPO investor roadshow, angering some Wall Street bankers who saw it as disrespectful.

2010 | NASDAQ | $17/share

Elon Musk's electric car company went public at a $1.7 billion valuation when it had sold fewer than 1,500 vehicles. Tesla was the first American car company to IPO since Ford in 1956. It would become the most valuable automaker in history.

Tesla was weeks from bankruptcy before the IPO. A $1,000 investment at IPO would be worth over $200,000 at its 2021 peak.

2014 | NYSE | $68/share

Jack Ma's Chinese e-commerce giant raised $25 billion -- the largest IPO in history at the time. Debuted at $92.70 and closed up 38% on its first day. The IPO that put Chinese tech on the global investing map.

Yahoo's early investment of $1 billion in Alibaba was worth over $80 billion at the time of the IPO, making it one of the best venture bets ever.

2008 | NYSE | $44/share

The payment network's $17.9 billion IPO was the largest in U.S. history at the time, going public just as the financial crisis was beginning. Visa's stock has returned over 1,500% since, proving the payments revolution was just getting started.

Visa went public in March 2008, six months before Lehman Brothers collapsed. It was one of the few major IPOs that year to reward early investors handsomely.

2019 | Tadawul | 32 SAR/share

The Saudi state oil company's IPO raised $25.6 billion and briefly valued Aramco at $2 trillion -- making it the world's largest IPO and most valuable company simultaneously. A landmark moment for Middle Eastern capital markets.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman originally wanted a $2 trillion valuation. Bankers pushed back, but Aramco hit it on the second day of trading anyway.

1999 | NASDAQ | $12/share

Jensen Huang's graphics chip company went public at a $626 million valuation during the dot-com boom. While most 1999 IPOs evaporated, NVIDIA survived and thrived, becoming the backbone of the AI revolution and a $3+ trillion company.

A $1,000 investment at NVIDIA's IPO would be worth well over $3 million. The company originally made graphics cards for gamers before pivoting to become the engine of artificial intelligence.

1995 | NASDAQ | $28/share

The IPO that launched the internet era. Marc Andreessen's web browser company priced at $28 and opened at $71 on its first day. Netscape had almost no revenue and had never turned a profit. It didn't matter -- the dot-com boom was born.

Andreessen was 24 years old and on the cover of Time magazine barefoot on a throne. The IPO made him worth $171 million in a single day.

2002 | NASDAQ | $15/share

Reed Hastings took his DVD-by-mail company public in the wreckage of the dot-com bust. Nobody expected the pivot to streaming that would destroy Blockbuster, disrupt Hollywood, and create one of the most dominant media companies ever.

Netflix tried to sell itself to Blockbuster for $50 million before the IPO. Blockbuster laughed them out of the room. Netflix is now worth over $300 billion.

2004 | NYSE | $11/share

Marc Benioff's cloud CRM company IPO'd at a $1.1 billion valuation, proving the software-as-a-service model was real. Salesforce pioneered the 'No Software' movement and became the blueprint for every SaaS company that followed.

Benioff staged mock protests outside Siebel Systems' user conference with 'No Software' signs before the IPO. The guerrilla marketing worked brilliantly.

1999 | NYSE | $53/share

Wall Street's most elite partnership finally went public after 130 years as a private firm, raising $3.66 billion. The IPO made hundreds of partners fabulously wealthy and ended an era of Wall Street culture.

Many Goldman partners opposed going public, arguing it would destroy the firm's culture of long-term thinking. In hindsight, they may have been right.

2020 | NASDAQ | $68/share

Brian Chesky's home-sharing platform doubled on its first day of trading, closing at $144.71. Remarkable given that just months earlier, during COVID lockdowns, the company's business had collapsed 80% and it was considering shelving the IPO entirely.

Airbnb was founded when Chesky and his co-founders couldn't afford rent and rented out air mattresses in their apartment. The name literally stands for 'Air Bed and Breakfast.'

2020 | NYSE | $120/share

The cloud data platform delivered the largest software IPO in history, raising $3.4 billion. The stock more than doubled on day one. Notable as Warren Buffett's first IPO investment in decades -- Berkshire Hathaway bought $735 million worth.

Buffett famously avoids IPOs, calling them a rigged game. His Snowflake investment shocked Wall Street and was likely pushed by lieutenants Todd Combs or Ted Weschler.

1956 | NYSE | $64.50/share

The Ford family took the automaker public after 53 years as a private company, raising $657 million -- the largest IPO in history at the time. Over 10 million shares were sold to 350,000 investors. It was a defining moment of American capitalism.

Henry Ford II sold shares to diversify the family's wealth, but the Ford family retained voting control through a dual-class share structure that persists to this day.

2021 | NASDAQ | Direct Listing, $381 reference

The first major cryptocurrency exchange to go public, via direct listing. Coinbase opened at $381 and briefly valued the company at over $100 billion, legitimizing crypto as an asset class in the eyes of traditional finance.

Coinbase's valuation at debut exceeded that of the NYSE's parent company, ICE. The crypto exchange was worth more than the stock exchange itself.

2019 | NYSE | $45/share

Travis Kalanick's ride-hailing juggernaut went public at an $82 billion valuation -- one of the largest tech IPOs ever. Despite a disappointing first-day drop of 7.6%, Uber's IPO marked the peak of the 'unicorn era' and the gig economy's arrival on Wall Street.

Uber lost $1.8 billion in the year before its IPO, the largest annual loss for a company going public at the time. Profitability wouldn't come for years.

2018 | NYSE | Direct Listing, $132 reference

Daniel Ek's music streaming platform pioneered the modern direct listing, bypassing investment banks and the traditional IPO process entirely. No new shares were issued, no capital was raised, and no lockup period applied. It changed how Silicon Valley thinks about going public.

Spotify's direct listing was so unusual that the NYSE had to get special SEC approval. It opened the door for Slack, Coinbase, Roblox, and others to follow.

2010 | NYSE | $33/share

GM's return to public markets after its 2009 government-backed bankruptcy was a $20.1 billion offering -- the largest IPO in U.S. history at the time. A symbol of American industrial resilience and the controversial auto bailout's success.

The U.S. government sold a large chunk of its GM stake at the IPO but ultimately lost about $11.2 billion on the bailout. Taxpayers took the hit so the automaker could survive.

1988 | NYSE (moved from OTC)

Technically not a traditional IPO -- Buffett's textile-company-turned-conglomerate was already publicly traded. But its listing on the NYSE in 1988 at roughly $4,000/share formalized its status. The A-shares have never split and trade above $600,000, making them the most expensive stock in history.

Buffett has called buying Berkshire Hathaway the worst investment he ever made. He originally bought the textile company to asset-strip it, then pivoted to using it as an investment vehicle.

2020 | NYSE | $102/share

The food delivery platform's shares surged 86% on its first day of trading, reaching a $72 billion valuation. DoorDash went public the day before Airbnb, creating a historic back-to-back IPO event during the pandemic-era listing frenzy.

CEO Tony Xu emigrated from China at age 5 and his mother worked as a restaurant worker -- the very type of business DoorDash now serves.

2023 | NASDAQ | $51/share

SoftBank took the British chip designer public (again) in the largest IPO of 2023, raising $4.87 billion at a $54.5 billion valuation. ARM's designs power virtually every smartphone on Earth, making it the quiet backbone of the mobile revolution.

SoftBank bought ARM for $32 billion in 2016, took it private, tried to sell it to NVIDIA for $40 billion (blocked by regulators), then re-IPO'd it at a higher valuation.

1984 | NYSE | Post-Breakup

After the government-ordered breakup of the Bell System, the 'new' AT&T and seven Baby Bells began trading separately. It was the most significant corporate restructuring in American history and reshaped telecommunications forever.

The original AT&T was once the most widely held stock in America. The breakup created seven regional companies, several of which eventually merged back together.