Chrysler in 1982 and Bitcoin in 2020. The pull never changes. What changes is whether you’ve lived long enough to recognize it.
This past week, headlines about the SpaceX IPO landed with all the subtlety of Taylor Swift announcing a surprise concert. Every business publication seemed to be shouting some version of the same message: This is your chance. Don’t miss it.
Advertisement
I wasn’t surprised by the coverage. What surprised me was the excitement—by everyone.
For months, people in my orbit had been talking about this offering. Not traders glued to CNBC. Friends. Smart, successful women and men who don’t generally spend their days debating aerospace valuations. The conversation felt strangely familiar. It was the same anticipation I felt trying to score Eras Tour tickets (I did, but it wasn’t easy). That “OMG, I have to get this or I’ll miss out on something big” feeling we’ve all felt.
The details change. The emotion doesn’t. On this one, it seemed like everyone wanted in.
Why? Because SpaceX isn’t really being sold as a stock; it’s being sold as a story. Most IPOs arrive with very little cultural baggage. They make software, sell products, and provide services. SpaceX launches rockets and carries astronauts into the unknown. It talks openly about Mars. But most strikingly, it sits somewhere between business, science fiction, national ambition, and reality television. Whether you think Elon Musk is a genius, a menace, or impossible to ignore, SpaceX has become one of the companies people associate with the future.
And who doesn’t want a piece of the future?
Advertisement
For years, fear of missing out (FOMO) was largely social. We worried about not getting invited to the party or not knowing what everyone was talking about at dinner. Social media turned that anxiety into a business model by giving us front-row seats to everyone else’s lives. Now the same instinct is showing up in investing.
Maybe that’s why the coverage feels personal. Every article implies a door is about to close forever. Get in now. Buy before it’s too late. Don’t be the person who passed on Amazon in 1997, or Apple in 2003, or Nvidia five years ago.
It’s an effective pitch because sometimes it’s true. That’s the uncomfortable part. The crowd isn’t always wrong.
Every time investors roll their eyes at IPO hype, someone points to Amazon, Apple, Google, or Tesla. When someone warns that a valuation has detached from reality, another person gets rich ignoring them.
I still remember Chrysler in the early 1980s. Back then it was Lee Iacocca, the K-car, and endless debates about whether the company was the comeback story of the decade or a disaster waiting to happen. I was just out of college, couldn’t afford much beyond rent and groceries, and had absolutely no business taking risks with the little money I had. But I could feel it in my bones. I needed in. I bought the story and rode the wave. We don’t remember the thousands of companies that disappointed us. We remember the winners. Which is exactly why IPOs generate so much emotion in the first place.
But here’s what the headlines never mention: An IPO isn’t a gift being offered to the public. It’s a sale. And a sale has two sides with opposite goals. On one side are the founders and early investors, who want to price as high as the market will bear on offering day. You’re on the other side, and you need to buy with enough room left for the stock to actually climb. Those two wants are in direct tension.
Advertisement
Here’s the catch: The seller sets the opening price, and the seller controls the story. So the article telling you to hurry is marketing written by the people on the other side of your trade. (New to how IPOs actually work? Our plain-English explainer breaks down the terms here.) That’s why I get nervous when an investment starts sounding like a cultural event. When urgency enters the chat, judgment leaves.
The irony of all of this is that many of the people chasing access may already have it. If you own broad index funds, retirement accounts, or diversified mutual funds, there’s a reasonable chance some version of SpaceX finds its way into your portfolio anyway—and not because anyone asked you. Index funds don’t buy based on a company’s flashy headline valuation. They buy based on the “float”—the slice of shares actually available to the public to trade. So SpaceX doesn’t land in your fund as a trillion-dollar monster overnight. It enters small, often a tiny percent of the company, and grows over time as more shares free up. The rocket is being fast-tracked into the funds sitting in your 401(k) whether you bought in or not.
This means that the one place your money is genuinely exposed, you didn’t choose. Meanwhile, the one place where you might be tempted to throw in more to chase the high, you’d be buying at a price some analysts say is more than double what the stock is actually worth. (Vanguard has a useful explainer on how this works with what it calls “moonshot IPOs”—worth a read.)
Which brings me to JOMO—the joy of missing out.
The older I get, the less I think the fear of missing out and the joy of missing out are opposites. They’re the same instinct, viewed from opposite ends of experience. I know the pull firsthand. March 2020, deep in COVID, between making banana bread and binging Netflix, I went down a rabbit hole on Bitcoin—reading the crypto comments, listening to the endless X threads, getting sucked all the way in. The FOMO was palpable. I still remember the feeling: Oh my gosh, I have to get in on this.
I opened a Robinhood account and made a modest bet. Then I rode the wave for a little while, didn’t have the stomach for it, and pulled out. Had I held on and not lost my nerve, I’d have made a small fortune. I’m okay with that. I’ve had plenty of investment failures over the years, and a few wins too. It’s exhilarating and exciting, right up until it makes you obsessive and a little crazy.
At 25, every opportunity feels scarce. At 65, you start to understand that opportunity is not the same thing as obligation.
Advertisement
And here’s what the data tells us: When it comes to investing, women actually tend to hold longer and steadier. We don’t let the swings between FOMO and JOMO drive the decisions that determine our options later in life. Most of us guard that autonomy as something precious—because it is. But yes, it’s easy to get caught up in the noise. I’ve been there.
After a few market cycles, a bubble or two, and some predictions about the future, you learn something else. You’re not going to be on every invitation list. And that’s A-OK.
The next few years will bring more SpaceX moments, AI companies, robotics companies, and biotech that sounds impossible until suddenly it isn’t. Some will change the world, and some will disappear.
Most will land somewhere in between.
The challenge isn’t deciding whether SpaceX is worth buying. The challenge is recognizing when you’re making an investment decision and when you’re answering a very old fear—that everyone else got invited to the future and you didn’t.
Sometimes the future arrives exactly as promised. Sometimes it arrives through the side door while we’re busy staring at the front entrance.
So take off the rose-colored glasses, put on your half-frame drugstore readers, and decide for yourself whether your JOMO outweighs your FOMO.
******
FINANCIAL DISCLAIMER
The information provided on PROVOKED is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal, tax, or investment advice. SFD Media LLC and its contributors are not licensed financial advisors, investment advisors, brokers, accountants, or attorneys. You should consult with a qualified professional before making any financial decisions based on this content. While efforts are made to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the information, SFD Media LLC makes no representations or warranties, express or implied, regarding its completeness, accuracy, or applicability to your individual circumstances. Reliance on any information from this site is solely at your own risk and discretion.
