Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell from May鈥檚 level but held at a historically high level, as millions of Americans remained out of work with the pandemic still under way.

Here were the main metrics from the Department of Labor鈥檚 report, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

• Change in non-farm payrolls: +4.8 million vs. +3.23 million expected
• Unemployment rate: 11.1% vs. 12.5% expected
• Average hourly earnings, month on month: -1.2%vs. -0.8% expected
• Average hourly earnings, year on year: +5.0% vs. +5.3% expected

The June jobs report came following a massive upside surprise in May, during which the economy unexpectedly added payrolls, when a loss of more than 7 million jobs had been expected. May鈥檚 payrolls were upwardly revised by 190,000 to 2.699 million, while April鈥檚 payroll losses were revised down by 100,000 to 20.8 million.

Estimates for the June payrolls gain also spanned a wide range, though none of the more than 70 economists polled by Bloomberg expected to see net job losses for June.

鈥淲e are in a whole new world of trying to model what data is going to be, because there鈥檚 not an economist in the world that鈥檚 ever gone through a forced economic shutdown,鈥� Tom Essaye, Sevens Report Research founder, told Yahoo Finance鈥檚 The First Trade on Tuesday. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 why a lot of these numbers are completely blowing past what the expectation is.鈥�

Other data had underscored the labor market鈥檚 steady improvement over the past two months. New jobless claims fell in each week since early April, and continuing unemployment claims began trending lower. Employment indices in each of the Institute for Supply Management鈥檚 and improved in the latest reports.

Still, ADP鈥檚 monthly jobs report Wednesday missed estimates, and showed net private payroll gains from May鈥檚 upwardly revised gain of more than 3 million.

The Department of Labor鈥檚 June jobs report was released on a Thursday, or a day earlier than typical, due to the market closures in observance of the Fourth of July holiday on Friday.

This post is breaking. Check back for updates.

鈥�

Emily McCormick is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.聽

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For most companies, the IPO process is painful. Not because IPOs are technically challenging or overly complex, but because a lot of additional hard work is required and it鈥檚 not a situation people often find themselves in.

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Unfortunately, there are no secrets for making an IPO painless. Every IPO is arduous, but there is one effective way to make an IPO less painful: listen to your auditors.

Make It Stop

One of the primary goals of every IPO is to finish as quickly as possible. There are several reasons for this. The two most important are to ensure you get out before an IPO window shuts, and, of course, to make the pain stop.

Unfortunately, this is not easy to do. The IPO process is slow and cumbersome. Even in the best of circumstances, it takes several months and 聽to go through the motions. Therefore, every day matters, bringing us to two absolute truths that you learn from operating in the IPO world long enough:

• IPO Truth #1. The long pole in the tent of every IPO is the financial statement audit.
• IPO Truth #2. Fighting with your auditors and the SEC never makes an IPO go faster.

I felt compelled to discuss the topic of how to approach an IPO audit after 聽on Uber鈥檚 financial performance:

Uber is no longer reporting unadjusted net revenue to its investors, due to new guidance from the聽SEC.

It is unclear if Uber is currently working on an IPO officially. The company just hired its replacement CEO, and the world’s largest unicorn is still chugging along without a COO and CFO.

However, the new CEO also just stated an IPO is at least 18 months away, and the Axios comment indicates that the ridesharing company has, at least, discussed its revenue recognition with the SEC as part of a pre-clearance discussion. Pre-clearance of technical issues is a very common pre-IPO move and 18 months isn’t all that far away. Therefore, let鈥檚 assume Uber is in the IPO process.

Revenue And The SEC

Uber previously recognized revenue from its UberX services on a net basis (net of driver costs), while recognizing revenue from its UberPool services on a more aggressive gross basis. Without getting into the accounting weeds around gross versus net revenue recognition, these services seem very similar from an accounting point of view.

Therefore, what Uber was doing with its Pool revenue seemed aggressive. That鈥檚 notable as discussions with the SEC concerning gross versus net revenue accounting are known to go something like this:

1. If the conclusion is aggressive, you definitely lose.
2. If the conclusion is a tiny bit aggressive, you definitely lose.
3. If the conclusion is on the fence, you still lose.

Companies in the IPO process understandably love gross revenue, but the SEC doesn鈥檛; therefore, it would not be at all surprising to see the UberPool accounting position get overturned by the SEC. To be fair, the accounting guidance around this issue is convoluted, making it easy for a reader to get to their preferred conclusion.

The main point here, however, is that this is just not a good issue to fight with the SEC. A good IPO audit partner will know that.

Of course, an audit partner can only do so much 鈥� management needs to be smart and trust the advice of IPO experts to determine what battles are winnable.

Unfortunately, not trusting an IPO expert is not all that uncommon.

Many CEOs and founders of these exciting IPO companies have probably been told 鈥渘o鈥� by experts for years. If the company is a true disruptor, like Uber, then this is likely the case. Therefore, breaking the old rules may appear to be a standard part of the process.

But fighting with the SEC is different; the SEC can鈥檛 be bullied.

This also goes beyond gross versus net revenue conclusions. Battling the SEC on any issue is often challenging, and that’s not a dig. SEC regulators are just doing their job, and they get ridiculous questions all the time. So, even in the best of circumstances, and even if a company鈥檚 intentions are pure, the process of trying to convince the SEC to agree with a conclusion that isn鈥檛 black and white can be brutal and is almost always time-consuming. It is also important to note that the SEC is loaded with smart people who understand nuance. That means the SEC, for the most part, is adept at seeing right through bullshit. Said another way: the SEC knows what it is doing and is generally very good at it.

Again, a good IPO audit partner will steer you clear of these unnecessary and time-consuming conversations.

Be Smart

If you have been smart, done your homework, and hired a good IPO audit partner from a reputable firm, they are probably not going to lead you down the wrong path. That means, as a founder, you should listen. And don鈥檛 just listen in regards gross versus net revenue either.

Listen to all of it.

Understandably, this is not always easy to do as several accounting rules do not make sense in every circumstance . (A set of rules meant to cover every company in the world is going to have some issues.) But IPO audit partners, the smart ones at least, have to say 鈥渘o鈥� sometimes, even when pressed by a prized IPO client.

That鈥檚 because the SEC doesn鈥檛 give a damn about anything except getting to the right answer. If the book says a position is wrong, then the SEC also believes the position is wrong 鈥� simple as that. So just listen to your IPO audit partner because, at the end of the day, all he or she wants to do is get the right answers, avoid hassles with the SEC, get the IPO over with, and not piss off everyone too much.

IPOs are difficult enough. As a founder, don鈥檛 make them more difficult than they need to be.

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Conventional wisdom states that we live in a . The rise of accelerator and incubator programs like Y Combinator, a robust VC ecosystem with more capital than it can deploy, and the (via the public cloud) help make starting a new company today much easier than it once was.

Technology is becoming more mainstream and normalized, as once small and darling tech startups have grown to represent the modern economic world, with the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple dominating the headlines.

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On the other side of the spectrum, exiting a startup, the process that runs the virtuous and necessary startup funding cycle, has never been more achievable. , like GE and Walmart, are snapping up tech startups to bolster their digital presences, an activity that was usually relegated to the tech giants themselves. Leaving aside some fluctuations over the past few quarters, tech M&A value is . The IPO market hasn鈥檛 been stellar, but recent months have seen some major tech companies go public. An overflowing pen of unicorns also means that we might be in for some exciting new tech IPOs in the near future, although that floodgate hasn鈥檛 opened quite yet.

So you can get funded and advised, set up infrastructure for little cost, raise capital when you need it, and bring liquidity to those investors; all the factors driving new startup formation seem to be in place.

In my conversations with VCs, this topic comes up all the time. They鈥檙e floored with how many quality, fundable companies there are today. In the words of successful , 鈥渋t has never been easier to start a great business.鈥�

If it鈥檚 easier than ever to start a company, you might expect the number of new tech startups founded per year to be pretty high. Surprisingly, the data tells us a different story.

What If Startup Activity is Actually Far Lower Than (Almost) Ever?

, a nonprofit focused on advancing education and fostering entrepreneurship, publishes a called the 鈥淜auffman Index鈥� that measures various facets of startup activity. The graph of startup density, or the number of startups per 1,000 firms, doesn鈥檛 look like the hockey stick that we might expect to see:

Barring a slight pickup over the past decade or so, there are two important observations to note here. First, startup density has been decreasing since the Kauffman Foundation started measuring it in 1977. And second, the financial crisis (or more accurately, the time period immediately before it) kicked off the most significant downturn in entrepreneurial activity since the chart starts.

And despite incremental progress since 2010, we鈥檙e nowhere near pre-2008 startup activity levels. Other Kauffman Index measures show some slightly more promising figures, but not what we might expect given the 鈥済olden age鈥� narrative that seems so prevalent.

Tech vs. The Rest

In all fairness, these Kauffman Index measures relate to all kinds of startups (such as bakeries and auto parts manufacturers). The growth factors that we鈥檙e talking about, like accelerators and cheap cloud computing, largely focus on tech startups.

But here, too, the data shows lower activity than expected. The Kauffman Foundation also published a in 2013 about high-tech businesses; the attached graph, where the blue line represents the number of high-tech startups founded in a given year, shows a similar decline since 2008.

(ICT stands for Information and Computer Technology, a more concentrated group of high-tech startups.)

Instead of spurring record numbers of new tech startups, our 鈥済olden age鈥� hasn鈥檛 really helped company formation much at all. It turns out that the real golden age for startup formation was actually the 90鈥檚 and the Dotcom era. And that鈥檚 despite the high, fixed cost of infrastructure and less mature funding environments.

Another surprising and emerging trend is the founder age gap. Moving back to the original Kauffman Index, there鈥檚 a notable divergence between younger and older founders. Companies are increasingly being started by older people.

Why might that be the case? In the words of Fareed Zakaria, who : 鈥淵oung people today dress like Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, consume technology voraciously and talk about disruptive innovation. But they want to work at Goldman Sachs, McKinsey and Google.鈥�

Why Aren鈥檛 We Founding More Companies?

So what鈥檚 going on? Why haven鈥檛 the amazing resources that today鈥檚 startups enjoy led to increased tech startup formation? I鈥檒l suggest a few possibilities, and then I will return to the importance of what the data tells us.

Kids Like Good Jobs

One reason why more people might not be founding companies is opportunity 鈥� especially for young people exiting school. Simply put, there are far more attractive alternatives to startups than there used to be.

Tech giants like Facebook and Google, who , are hot destinations for graduating software engineers and other relevant majors. These companies simply didn鈥檛 exist at their current scale (or at all, in Facebook鈥檚 case) during the dot com era.

And it鈥檚 not just software companies that are embracing younger workers and creating a more welcoming workplace. Traditional juggernauts like GE have created , and banks like J.P. Morgan have begun . And finally, even leaving large corporations aside, there are lots of mid-to-larger companies like Github and Airbnb that offer dynamic and exciting work environments. In short, people may be dis-incentivized to start new companies when their alternate employment options are so attractive.

Zombie Unicorns?

Another potential reason is the double edged sword of a robust funding environment. Companies that might have died in previous cycles can stay alive and in business longer.

With less VC funding available 20 years ago, your company, to stay alive, needed to do one of the following:

1. Raise money from a limited cadre of investors.
2. Make enough money to support yourself.
3. Go public or be acquired.

There鈥檚 a lot more VC money around nowadays at all different stages (), and that gives companies more runway and flexibility to push off profitability or exit. Founders and employees who might otherwise be starting new companies can stick around right where they are.

These two possibilities 鈥� better employment opportunities and potentially lower company turnover 鈥� may help explain why today鈥檚 鈥済olden age鈥� of startups hasn鈥檛 actually resulted in more startups.

But the conclusion stands: we might not be forming companies at the rate that we think. It鈥檚 my personal belief that within reason, more startups are good for the economy and entrepreneurship should be encouraged. I hope that these statistics and this article can spur some dialogue on how we can parlay today鈥檚 ease of starting a company into tangible growth.

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Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are all that tech can talk about today, it seems.

What鈥檚 an ICO? An ICO is when a company, usually blockchain-related, sells 鈥渢okens鈥� (read: new cryptocurrencies or cryptoassets) that to their product. Value can mean that the new token owners have governance rights, product use rights, or any slew of other things.

And ICOs are quickly picking up steam. Bancor, a company without a finished product, . That sum was outdone days later by Status.im鈥檚 , which took less time to complete than Banco鈥檚 3 hour fundraising cycle.

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But the surface-level absurdity of a messaging company raising $275 million in hours highlights a cadre of problems ICOs have, and the tough questions that they鈥檙e forcing the tech community to answer.

Questions like: Is it irresponsible to raise so much money just because you can? How will naive investors be protected? What if this all crashes?

These questions will need to be answered before ICOs can become as mainstream as blockchain zealots say they will. Thankfully — but frequently forgotten — these problems have actually been dealt with before 鈥� five years ago to be exact.

Before ICOs Were Cool — The JOBS Act and the Equity Crowdfunding Craze

Passed in 2012 and implemented fully by mid-2016, Title III of the JOBS Act legalized equity crowdfunding for non-accredited investors. In English, Title III allows non-accredited investors, people without large new worths or super high incomes, to invest (limited) amounts into startups and receive equity in return. This was, and still is, a big deal.

Crowdfunding was prior to the JOBS Act. Kickstarter and Indiegogo became household names. But it was illegal to receive equity in return for your provided capital.

You either got a product in exchange, or you classified it as a donation. Title III was the first step on the path to changing that, and turning all of your friends into an armchair venture capitalist (hopefully not).

This new open door spurred a lot of . If there鈥檚 anything I鈥檝e learned from my time as a venture analyst, it鈥檚 that startup investing is very, very difficult. Success requires a diversified portfolio and, or, extreme luck.

That in mind, when it comes to equity crowdfunding: How are doctors and lawyers without any startup experience going to invest responsibly? How will founders maintain reporting and transparency to hundreds or thousands of investors? Aren鈥檛 we just opening the world鈥檚 wallet to scam artists?

Do these questions sound familiar?

ICOs and Equity Crowdfunding 鈥� Siblings?

They should, because they are the same questions being asked about ICOs. While we鈥檒l discuss the key differences in a moment, ICOs and equity crowdfunding share the same fundamental premise: raising funds for a new company from the crowd instead of an elite group.

Both are meant to democratize the funding process, and to allow people without 鈥減roprietary access,鈥� like venture capitalists, to be investors too.

And both face the same core problems that any open network does: trust, transparency, and accountability. Perhaps most importantly, both were and are heralded as 鈥渞evolutions鈥� that will displace existing systems and change the way we allocate capital.

The funny thing is, equity crowdfunding hasn鈥檛 really taken off to the degree that many expected.

It鈥檚 tough to estimate the numbers, but of equity crowdfunding was likely raised 2016, compared to around invested. All of these questions faded into the background as VC-backed startups took the lion鈥檚 share of success and media attention. Ironically, it鈥檚 taken a totally new format of funding (ICOs) that wasn鈥檛 even regulated in the first place to raise the same questions that worried us beforehand.

Distant Cousins

But for all the similarities that ICOs and Equity Crowdfunding share, there are a few key differences that should be noted. These disparities and the lens they offer can help explain why everyone is so much more excited about ICOs than they seem to be about equity crowdfunding.

The first and most important difference between ICOs and equity crowdfunding is that, well, ICOs have nothing to do with equity. Tokens are not the same thing as shares, and (generally) do not entitle you to the same things that shares do, like voting and reporting rights.

In fact, removing the need to raise equity and debt is one of the most interesting features of Blockchain-based companies. Tokens are all used differently depending on how the given company鈥檚 business model is designed. For example, crowdsourced hedge fund Numerai鈥檚 recently issued Numeraire token allows data scientists to stake the token on the success of their machine learning models. They get dollar based payouts for predicting the stock market effectively, and lose their tokens if their predictions are poor.

The second key difference is the reason why these ICOs are in the news 鈥� they鈥檙e not regulated at all! There are no mandatory reporting requirements, no limits on the amount allowed to be raised (hello, Status.im), and no regulations on what value tokens need to provide. Equity crowdfunding does have all of these requirements. It鈥檚 really the Wild West out there in ICO land.

One more contrast is community reaction to ICOs. Unlike equity crowdfunding, ICO鈥檚 have taken off like rockets. It鈥檚 partially unfair since equity crowdfunding sums are limited to $1M per year per company, but the scale that ICOs are seeing is unprecedented. Not only are the sums raised really large ($275 million), but they鈥檙e as oversubscribed as a YC company鈥檚 seed round.

The two largest ICOs were done in under 3 hours, and there were significant lines to get in. Institutional cryptocurrency investors have even created 鈥渟niper wallets鈥� that in ICOs before the average investor can. At this pace, ICOs really might catch up to venture funding before we know it.

So What Do We Have Here?

So are equity crowdfunding and ICOs similar? In some ways. They鈥檙e based on the same basic premise and share structural ties. But the kinds of freedoms and flexibilities that ICOs enjoy compared to equity crowdfunding are significant. It鈥檚 no surprise that we鈥檙e quick to point out the problems we might soon face with this new funding contraption.

These problems are going to take a while to sort themselves out. It鈥檚 likely we will see a few spectacular failures and successes before the market finds a comfortable middle ground. And it鈥檚 anybody鈥檚 guess how and when the regulatory bodies enter the equation. Until then, understanding that these questions have been asked before might do a bit to comfort the qualms.

In effect, the major difference between ICOs and equity crowdfunding is the same as what makes the whole cryptocurrency 鈥渞evolution鈥� unique 鈥� a focus on decentralization, empowering the common node, and ignoring anyone who tries to reel it in (including the government). ICOs do present the same problems as equity crowdfunding 鈥� but at a much larger and more extreme scale. And the cypherpunks wouldn鈥檛 have it any other way.

Correction: Article originally stated Status.im raised 275m based on reporting from The Merkel.聽We have since updated.

滨濒濒耻蝉迟谤补迟颈辞苍:听