Video: Opinion | Why the Anthropic and OpenAI I.P.O.s Are Unusual
- OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs are exits, not capital raises—insiders are cashing out at valuations that make even them sweat.
- A VC tells Ezra Klein the 'greater fool' theory is live: buyers are betting on the next sucker, not on AI's future.
- Run rates near $100B don't justify trillion-dollar price tags—unless you're counting on post-lockup bag holders.
- SpaceX's IPO hype turned into a 'roller coaster decline'; expect a replay for the AI crown jewels.
- The old poker line applies: if you can't spot the fool at the table, it's your portfolio.
Brief Summary
Venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky poured cold coffee on the AI IPO party, calling the Anthropic and OpenAI stock debuts what they really are: exit events for insiders who'd rather hold dollars than their own equity. These aren't growth companies hitting the market for expansion cash—they're mature beasts with $70-$100 billion revenue runs, which means the public offering is a liquidation sale disguised as a milestone. Skeptics do the same math as the bulls, but the difference is interpretation: one sees compound AI supremacy, the other sees a wall of selling shareholders dumping post-lockup on whoever's left. Kedrosky drags in the SpaceX analogy, where pre-IPO fervor curdled into a long slide, and then drops the hammer—if you're buying, you're the greater fool at the poker table, and even he'd take cash over these shares. The unprecedented part isn't the valuation; it's that everyone involved knows the game and plays it anyway.
Why This Matters
Your 401(k) might not be in these names yet, but the AI IPO wave is a canary for the whole tech market's oxygen supply. When insiders at the smartest companies are sprinting for the exit, it's a signal that the trillion-dollar narrative is thinner than a neural net's excuse for a missed training run. If you're holding any tech index fund, expect volatility that makes a crypto winter look like a spa day—because these exits will set the mood for every AI-adjacent startup's valuation. The real takeaway: don't be the bag holder at the poker table. If your pension fund is buying this hype, you're funding someone's yacht, and that's not a vision of the future, it's a past-due invoice.