Currently there are a ton of companies that could be placed into the busted IPO or busted SPAC bucket. It appears that a lot of these companies are consumer facing in some sense whereby retail investors may have felt comfortable investing in products or services they know.

There are a number of companies who's opening price is their 52W high & the charts are just gross:

$POSH $VMEO $LZ (examples)

While there are success stories of buying great companies on their IPO I would say that's the exception, not the norm. When companies go public there seems to be a scarcity mindset among investors where everyone is rushing to get into the IPO.

Are people trying to front run institutional investors?

Is it just the allure of a shinny new object?

Do you want to get in on the 'ground floor' of the stock?

Does the IPO pop serve as confirming evidence that this will be a good investment? (price drives narrative)

We know insiders will be selling shares after the lockup period ends and we have limited financial data to view as the company has yet to publicly report earnings. I believe retail investors should always assume they are the sucker at the poker table until proven otherwise and the poor performance of IPO's may be a good reminder to curb your enthusiasm.