Yeah, except that's not how this works outside the theoretical realm.
In practice, those that actually took companies public know that the more terrible crap you throw into the S-1 ( pitch deck included ) as long as you state that risk-wise you are probably a terrible investment for the public, the better protected you are from the lawsuits in the future when the public's investment does not pan out: you say 'we are doing X and this is our rosy pie in the sky pitch deck, but we must tell you the risk is that none of this is helping us to make money. Buyer beware'
Should one look at the S-1s of the tech companies that went public in last 4-5 years one would see that pattern
Source: Attorneys engaged by the investment banks to help companies to IPO.
Personally I prefer the dry version of SEC fillings. More to the point and with less marketing and PR crap. Also shows you that the finance department is filled with dry professionals, and as much as these finance people can be a pain less professional ones are real curse especially if form matters more than function. Like at my current gig which apparently won an award for their annual reports, the report mind you and not the reported figures. I tried reading it, if you ask me at least 75% are fluff and of the reminder a lot is just lacking substance.
This is also true. Back when I was drafting my then-company's Form 10-K annual reports, for just that reason I loaded up the risk section with a list of all the things that could go wrong, based on studying similar lists from the big software companies. It's sometimes known as vaccination or inoculation — "hey, we told you all these things that could make our stock price go south!"
(The danger with this approach, of course, is that if you inadvertently leave something out, the plaintiffs' lawyers will spotlight the omission and argue, "they LIED!")
In practice, those that actually took companies public know that the more terrible crap you throw into the S-1 ( pitch deck included ) as long as you state that risk-wise you are probably a terrible investment for the public, the better protected you are from the lawsuits in the future when the public's investment does not pan out: you say 'we are doing X and this is our rosy pie in the sky pitch deck, but we must tell you the risk is that none of this is helping us to make money. Buyer beware'
Should one look at the S-1s of the tech companies that went public in last 4-5 years one would see that pattern
Source: Attorneys engaged by the investment banks to help companies to IPO.