Nick Woodman, CEO of action camera maker GoPro (GPRO), doesn’t regret taking his company public last year, despite some of its recent stock troubles. But he does have an idea about why some others have been delaying.
Speaking on Tuesday at a private tech event in California, Woodman recalled that numerous people had warned him against a GoPro IPO, saying that he’d live to regret the experience. But once the company had built out its management team and focused its vision, Woodman realized something very important about the naysayers:
“People kept telling be that I’d hate it from a public-facing point of view, and that it would all be a giant distraction,” Woodman explained. “But what I realized was that all of the people telling me that were introverts. I think going on TV and that of stuff is kind of fun. The extra work is really for the CFO and the finance and legal departments.”
Woodman, who originally conceived of GoPro so that he could record his own surfing exploits, added that the company’s IPO significantly increased global brand awareness and aided in recruiting new employees.
