joining us now to discuss is ted smith, cofounder and partner of union square advisors.really makes it even easier for startups to raise cash. what is your broad reaction to this move? >> thanks for having me on. really appreciate it. it's definitely a change in the i.p.o. market. direct listings have been available for some time. although very few companies have availed themselves to that option due to the fact that they couldn't raise capital going that way. it was merely a mechanism by which they could see their shares begin to trade in the public markets. the change today that the s.e.c. authorized for the new york stock exchange, which allows companies to also raise capital in a direct listing, does bypass the traditional i.p.o. process and will mean a big change for how underwriters are able to help companies who seek to go public. vonnie: of course we did see one go that way in september. that was one recent example of a direct listing. but what does it do for investors? is it possible to evaluate a company well enough before it goes public in order to be an inves

ben smith resigned in december of 1962 so ted kennedy could get seniority over the other incoming freshmen in the 1962 class. ted was the senior senator of the class of freshmen senators. >> it seems like such a political detail and paying every attention to each political detail. we have talked about some of the first things he did and let's talk about how his brother's assassination shift at him and his brother bobby. you talk a little bit about that. >> that was not their first loss, family laws. how many children did they have come in nine i think? and the oldest brother had been killed in war and won a deal they are sisters had died in a plane crash and another sister rosemary was hospitalized more or less permanently. >> she was mentally challenged and the kennedy family, the kennedy family as i said earlier and this is a matter of lows as much as anything of the kennedy family was a pedagogy and to understand the family and i go into detail in the book about this to understand of the family functions you have to understand that a aesthetics were everything to the kennedys. it's all

that no, that wasn't going to happen, that this was now ted's seat and -- and that ted was going to run and that ben smith was going to be evicted from that. nothing stood in the way of kennedy ambition. and ted, he was largely pushed into that seat by his father. as i said earlier, he said to john and robert, you have yours and now it's ted's turn to get his. ted, he wanted the seat but he was pushed into it and pushed into a very difficult primary campaign against the nephew of the speaker of the house john jn mccormick. first ran as democratic state convention and then when ted got the endorsement then against him in democratic primary and it was a brutal primary and it was a really brutal primary of the massachusetts dynasties to see mccormick would beat the unseasoned kennedy. it's a great story nevertheless. in the book i try and tell it in some detail because it's a very interesting story about how the kennedys operate and interesting story too about ted's national s for politics. were i think it's vesting, one small little detail, that when ted won, ben smith resigned early and what was the reason