"retail investors" is a bit of a term of art, counterpointed to "institutional investors". translations: "public market investors", "people whose whole thing is doing investment"

institutionals are The Investment Firms Whose Names You Hear About, and they invest in the still-private (at the time) company, which allows the two parties involved to set specific terms and commitments and preferences, etc

the game that's been played by a bunch of bayfuckers for a couple years now is as follows:

1. pour money into something, whether bullshit or not
2. hype the everliving fuck out of it
3. spend enough to destroy/outlive "related"/"relevant" competition, if necessary
4. if still alive, live long enough to go public
5. pull in piles of retail market money
6. sell and get out before the hot air escapes the balloon
7. (optional) write about Your Incredible Journey

what's quite frustrating is how often this still works, because of dynamics of FOMO and other shit

so that when genAI goes down its our savings that go “pop”?

as to this, It's Complicated™️. depends on whether the places your money is kept ends up getting allocated into shares on shit like this, etc. it could or couldn't happen, and the only real way to know is to keep an eye on the financial-entity decision-makers in the entities involved