Fervo Energy, the geothermal power company, went public and has since seen its market cap fall to $5.0B as of September 9, 2026 — down roughly 34% from its earlier $7.6B valuation. This is the risk profile every employee implicitly signs up for when a company IPOs: liquidity arrives, but so does daily price volatility, and there's no guarantee the stock holds the value it had on listing day.
The numbers
A 34% decline from IPO-era levels means an employee holding shares valued at $7.6B-implied pricing is now looking at a position worth roughly two-thirds of that. For anyone who exercised options or held RSU shares through the standard 90–180 day lockup period and into this decline, the paper value has eroded meaningfully in a relatively short window — a reminder that lockup expiration is the start of your ability to sell, not a guarantee that the price at that moment is favorable.
What changed
Early-stage energy infrastructure companies, even ones with strong long-term secular tailwinds like grid-scale geothermal, tend to see volatile post-IPO pricing as public markets work out how to value capital-intensive, multi-year development projects against near-term execution risk. There's no single disqualifying event behind Fervo's decline — it reflects the market recalibrating how much near-term risk to price into a still-scaling infrastructure business.
What this means for employees
If you sold shares below your cost basis, you can use that capital loss to offset capital gains elsewhere in your portfolio, and up to $3,000 of net capital losses against ordinary income per year, with the remainder carried forward — a real, if modest, silver lining. Your cost basis depends on how you acquired the shares: for RSUs, it's the fair market value at vest (on which you already paid ordinary income tax); for exercised options, it's your strike price. Get this right before filing, since it directly determines your reportable gain or loss on any shares you've sold.
If you're holding or have sold Fervo shares since lockup expiration, pull your vest and exercise records together and run the calculator to see your real cost basis — then talk to a tax advisor about loss harvesting if you're underwater.