Compliance costs and exposure to political risk is the primary driver of going or staying private in the US. A company immediately becomes a target for governmental and NGO political pressures once it becomes public. Now it no longer can focus on designing, producing, and selling the best products and services at a good profit for its shareholders, it must devote a substantial percentage of its efforts on hiring lawyers, PR specialists, and lobbyists. More recently the SEC has morphed from an agency whose primary goal was transparency of investment risk, to a cudgel for enforcing preferred political goals. Nobody wants a target on their back if they can avoid it. A company only goes public when it has no choice when it runs out of investors or shareholders need liquidity. Pretty ironic IMO that same voices that identified public corporations as the enemy are now lamenting their demise.