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Facebook’s recent initial public offering has been called the biggest disaster in U.S. financial history. The stock failed to rise to the same first-day heights as previous IPOs, the NASDAQ exchange had technical problems, and there have been accusations that Facebook and its bankers misled investors on the offering. Now the IPO market has gone cold. Should we blame Facebook? Or is the IPO model broken and in need of replacement by something else? Some IPO critics think it’s about time.

KPCC’s business and economy reporter Matt DeBord debated the past, present and future of the IPO with Reuters finance blogger Felix Salmon, who has written extensively about the problems of the public offerings, and a representative of the Los Angeles venture capital community.