“There is this idea that it's unfair, actually, to the ordinary investor because we haven't allowed them to get access to some of these investment opportunities early,” says NYT editor and CNBC anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin. For decades, guardrails have kept some Americans from investing directly in private companies, limiting them to the public markets regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Yet, the wealthy and connected have had access to investments, like Facebook and Uber, before they went public. Now, there’s a push, partially by the Trump administration and partially by the industry itself, to “democratize” finance, says Sorkin, raising new questions about risk, fairness, and opportunity. “They’ve protected a lot of people,” Sorkin says, “but some would argue they’ve also protected people from getting rich.” #finance #privateequity #venturecapital