Hi, I'm Dan Pramak and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Bridge Bank.

Today is Wednesday, September 23rd.

Tech stocks are down, CEO confidence is up, and we're focused on the newest intersection of Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

Earlier today, we learned about the biggest deal ever involving SPACs, those blank check

companies that have been getting created by everyone from hedge fund titans like Bill

Ackman to tech icons like Reed Hoffman to former House Speaker Paul Ryan.

For those who don't know how SPACs work, here's a basic

primer. A group of investors form a shell company. That's the SPAC. It then raises money

through an IPO and uses that money to find a private company to buy. The SPAC and the private

company work out all the details, and if successful, the private

company becomes publicly traded using the SPAC's ticker symbol, and the SPAC basically ceases to

exist. Today's record-breaking deal was a $16 billion transaction to buy something called UWM,

which is the country's second largest wholesale mortgage lender,

just behind rocket loans. But beyond that, UWM deal, there are tons of SPACs, way more

than we've ever seen before, with new ones being announced daily. Now, a big part of this surge

does come from Wall Street, of course, but also a huge part is coming from Silicon Valley,

including from tech venture capitalists who used to invest in a startup, take it public, and then

move on to the next startup.

Now these same investors are looking to buy in late, helping tech unicorns ride into the

public market.

So we want to better understand why Valley investors are

creating SPACs and why now, with two people who just formed one. Reed Hoffman, the co-founder

...