Speaking of good ol' days: We were at a point some years( but not too far) back where a company would get Mezzanine financing @ $25 million well before final stages and then IPO. And probably keep a nice hunk of founder's stock away from dilution. Look @ Cortex where a pretty likely commercialization, with maybe a $500 million in sales to a $billion in sales is valued @ $25 million in the stock market, but then the world's largest financial companies are all down 60-95% ( 100% in some cases) There will be fortunes made from this mess but they will not likely amount to anywhere near the horror of the loss, in dollar terms. Robert Prechter predicted this but he was very early. And ridiculed for it, he stuck to his guns. I am sticking with Cortex and hopefull it's descent in over. (real fu$%%king soon!)