Merryn Talks Money The Portfolio Reset: Episode 2
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Oct 21, 2026 Passive investing was meant to follow markets, but its explosive growth is now reshaping them. Merryn Somerset Webb and John Stepek explore what SpaceX’s potential listing says about the shifting boundary between public and private markets, how index flows can distort prices, and why even “passive” funds involve active decisions about access, allocation, risk and personal goals.
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SpaceX Created Most Wealth Before Its IPO
- SpaceX reached public markets at roughly $2 trillion after early investors captured most of its extraordinary growth privately.
- Founders, employees, venture capitalists, and other private holders owned the journey from experimental rockets to a global company.
Public Markets No Longer Capture Every Winner
- Buying public markets no longer guarantees exposure to capitalism’s next generation of winners.
- Companies can now become enormous privately, leaving public-market investors to buy only after much of the growth has occurred.
Private Equity Returns Depend On Access
- Private-market access does not automatically reproduce the returns earned by elite institutions.
- Private-equity results are widely dispersed, so knowing Yale succeeded says little about funds available to ordinary investors.