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When David Glazer, now chief financial officer at Palantir Technologies, joined the software company in 2013, he thought the firm would make a splashy debut on the public market.
"I originally came to Palantir thinking they're going to have a really big IPO," he said in an interview with CNBC.
Seven years later, it turned out the software company — growing quickly even amid Covid-19 — would take a different route to the marketplace.
The team thought, "Hey, no one is crazy enough to do this thing in the middle of a pandemic," said Glazer.
Last September, Palantir allowed employee shareholders and existing investors to sell their shares to the public in what's known as a direct listing.
