When I worked in Equities at Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse, we would occasionally bring a hot IPO deal to market. During the company roadshow, we’d take management around to meet one on one with our largest investors and clients. Sometimes the IPO was so in demand that many clients could not even get a one on one, and instead had to settle for a group breakfast, group lunch, or group dinner.

After meeting management, clients would submit their indications of interest. As the lead book runner of the IPO, we decided how much of an allocation each client would get. And let me tell you, that process was more difficult than deciding which friends and relatives to leave off the guest list for a limited budget wedding.

Some clients got zero shares, which made them understandably angry. But they were zeroed because they either did too little business with