What's true is that most stocks, including IPOs, don't do well in the long run. The half-life of a publicly traded company is something like 10 years.
I was very surprised to read this and from a quick Google search, what you imply ("don't do well in the long run") is not supported by that "half-life" statistic.
"We show that the typical half-life of a publicly traded company is about a decade, regardless of business sector. [...] While liquidation is often responsible for firm deaths, a much more common cause of death relates to the disappearance of companies through mergers and acquisitions. Thus, in our definition, firms may ‘die’ through a variety of processes: they may split, merge or liquidate as economic and technological conditions change."