Shares of Confluent closed at $45.02 after their first day, up 25% and raising Confluent’s market capitalization to $11.4 billion. This data, Kreps says, isn’t quite like what you’ll find in data warehouses, data lakes or other infrastructure built to replace on-site server racks. A 2015 Forbes magazine profile compared Confluent’s data streams to the chocolate river at the core of Willy Wonka’s fictional chocolate factory. Kreps owned about 24 million shares, per Confluent’s S-1 regulatory filing, with another 1.2 million shares in vested options and nearly 4.6 million shares yet to vest. He still owned 24.4 million shares at IPO, for a net worth of just under $1.1 billion.

Source: Forbes June 24, 2021 20:03 UTC