Of course one of the biggest proponents of the public-markets-don’t-care-about-the-long-term thesis is Elon Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., who went so far as to pretend he was going to take Tesla private to get away from the short-termist public shareholders who gave his money-losing future-focused company the highest valuation of any American car maker ever. The problem with public markets is not that they can’t stomach short-term losses in pursuit of higher long-term value. The problem with public markets is that they have a diversity of opinion. Some people will think that the short-term losses are acceptable in the pursuit of long-term vision, and they’ll buy the stock. Other people will think that the short-term losses demonstrate a long-term problem, and they’ll short the stock. In private markets, the only investors you deal with are the believers. Some people won’t believe in your long-term vision, but you’ll never hear from them. In public markets you will, and you might not like it.