A nice guy plays the Wall Street game

[Bloomberg] [Fully Charged]( From [Bloomberg](   [FOLLOW US [Facebook Share]]( [Twitter Share]( [SUBSCRIBE [Subscribe]](  Hi all, it’s Eric. I’m writing from a hallway in Manhattan’s St. Regis hotel, where orange juice costs $15. Some 20 floors above me, Lyft Inc. executives are pitching investors over lunch in a private room. Of course, Lyft won’t let me or any other reporters near the meeting. (A different reporter was asked to stop skulking in the lobby.) And the same goes for all of Lyft’s other private meetings this week with top mutual fund managers, stewards of pension funds and various finance elites. A few days ago at the same hotel, I got shooed away for sitting too close to the conference room doors. You might not think it’s a travesty that this pesky, prying reporter can’t hear what’s being said behind closed doors—but I’m your proxy, dear reader. And if I don’t know what Lyft is telling Wall Street, neither will retail investors.  It’s not necessarily Lyft’s fault that the average investor is barred from these meetings. Lyft is hewing carefully to Securities and Exchange Commission rules which regulate how public markets-bound companies disclose information. But as someone who generally writes about private companies, I had clearly built up an overly rosy view of the virtues of public offerings—seeing them as a great leveler, a moment when regular investors get the same shot at evaluating tech companies as venture capitalists and insiders. So far, that seems far from the truth. Sure, Lyft publicly released its prospectus, which details the key financial information about the company. But most people won’t get to watch executives answer skeptical questions, nor will they hear whatever unreported tidbits emerge in these meetings. For instance, we learned Thursday that [Lyft expects 2019 to be the peak of its spending](, and there are plans to lower it in future years. We've managed to wring out that information—but what other caveats, or body language in that meeting, was never reported? There’s one particular topic that I think retail investors are missing out on: What Lyft thinks about its competition with Uber Technologies Inc. The ride-hailing company doesn’t mention Uber [in its investor video]( at all, and only barely touches on its rival in the prospectus. I know that investors asked about competition with Uber in these private meetings. The opportunity to force Lyft to engage on topics that it doesn’t want to is invaluable. The secrecy isn’t the only thing that’s off-putting about the process. The expectation-setting can seem like it's a bit for show. Lyft and its bankers get to set an undisclosed price target that inevitably leaks, and then they just have to do slightly better than that to win plaudits. Finally, this roadshow process will culminate in the ultimate insider financial transaction: Certain investors get the opportunity to buy Lyft’s shares before it’s public. Only then, after all these private meetings in fancy hotels, will regular people get to decide whether they want to buy shares in a company that lost $991 million last year. Lyft’s brand might be Mr. Nice Guy, but its executives still played the Wall Street game. They didn't insist on holding a weird Dutch auction as Google did or forgo an IPO to list their shares directly as Spotify Technology SA did or as Slack Technologies Inc. intends to do. They wore suits to the St. Regis, rubbed shoulders with investment bankers, and rode away in black fancy SUVs—just like most other companies that come to town. —[Eric Newcomer](mailto:enewcomer@bloomberg.net)  And here’s what you need to know in global technology news Uber picked the New York Stock Exchange for [its own initial public offering](, according to a person familiar with the company. The event could be one of the five largest IPOs of all time.  A security flaw at Facebook meant [hundreds of millions]( of users' passwords were visible to Facebook employees. The social network says it has fixed the problem.  The White House has a new chief technology officer: [Michael Kratsios](, who had been the deputy CTO. He was previously the chief of staff at Thiel Capital.  Join Bloomberg's flagship tech event, [Sooner Than You Think 2019](, on June 11 to 12 in London. Learn and be inspired by the world's most influential tech leaders. View the website here, and apply to attend.   Sponsor Content by Masterworks.io Who says art has to be subjective? When it consistently outperforms the S&P 500, we’re feeling pretty objective about art as an investment. Want in? [Masterworks.io]( lets you buy shares in high-end art (think Warhol and Monet). [Check it out](.   You received this message because you are subscribed to the Bloomberg Technology newsletter Fully Charged. You can tell your friends to [sign up here](.  [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022