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SpaceX and Anthropic secondary market surge bypasses public IPO scrutiny

Wednesday, June 10, 2026 · from 3 podcasts
All-InMoonshots with Peter Diam…Hard Fork
  • Secondary market trading in SpaceX and Anthropic stock has doubled since 2021, creating a $10M+ per-employee liquidity engine.
  • CEOs of private AI giants avoid market feedback that could correct costly strategic errors like Facebook’s mobile delay.
  • Washington traded AI regulation for a voluntary 30-day government review window to secure a tactical advantage over China.
  • Public retail investors are buying in through high-fee platforms as institutional pros like Altimeter Capital sell slices.

The path to a trillion-dollar exit has changed. Massive private companies like SpaceX and Anthropic, fueling an AI-driven IPO boom, are increasingly paying employees and investors through a parallel financial system. According to Brad Gerstner on the All-In podcast, secondary market trading volume is now double its 2021 peak, representing 31% of all venture activity.

This secondary market explosion has replaced the IPO as the primary liquidity event. It means employees can buy houses and venture funds can return capital without waiting for a ticker symbol. On Hard Fork, Casey Newton argued the impending IPOs will mint thousands of new millionaires in San Francisco, concentrating wealth so intensely that some home sellers are now reportedly asking for AI stock instead of cash.

But staying private this long carries a hidden cost: bad information. Gavin Baker and Chamath Palihapitiya argued on All-In that private investors, eager to maintain access to hot rounds, act like sycophants. In a public market, selling provides a "truth" signal. Baker cited Mark Zuckerberg’s delayed pivot to mobile - which Zuckerberg later said public pressure would have forced sooner. Private CEOs can become "special flowers" to boards afraid to deliver hard truths.

"In a public market, you sell the stock if you don’t like the strategy, providing a ‘truth’ signal that private boards often ignore."

- Gavin Baker, All-In

The capital itself is staggering. Anthropic’s confidential S1 filing reveals a company generating about $9.4 million in revenue per employee, a rate nearly quadruple that of Google, as noted on Moonshots. This efficiency fuels valuations that could reach $1.8 trillion on day one, according to Polymarket odds.

While retail investors gain access through platforms like Forge Global’s partnership with Schwab, institutional players are looking for the exit. Gerstner admitted Altimeter Capital is selling slices of its private positions to return capital to LPs, even as retail investors "yolo" into high-fee special purpose vehicles.

Washington’s regulatory approach has fundamentally shifted to accommodate this private boom. A new executive order, signed by President Trump, abandons heavy regulation for a voluntary 30-day pre-release review of new AI models. As Imad Ustak framed it on Moonshots, this window is a tactical advantage for U.S. national security, giving the government early access to models that can, for example, discover zero-day cyber vulnerabilities.

"Washington realized AI is key to full-spectrum dominance. Regulation is being traded for early access."

- Imad Ustak, Moonshots

The question is what happens when the music stops. Gerstner contrasted today’s leaders, which are real businesses, with the revenue-less concepts of 1999. But he warned a normal 10-20% market consolidation could cause panic among new retail entrants who bought in at peak private valuations. The parallel financial system works until it doesn’t, and the traditional market’s brutal feedback loop may arrive too late.

#Markets#Big Tech#AI Infrastructure
AnthropicCharles SchwabPolymarketSpaceXFacebookGoogle

Source Intelligence

- Deep dive into what was said in the episodes

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Inside the Private Stock Market Boom: SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI & the Rise of Secondaries • Jun 7

  • Gerstner contrasts the 2025 market with the 1999 bubble, noting today's leaders like Anthropic and SpaceX are real businesses, not revenue-less concepts like CMGI. A normal 10-20% market consolidation could cause panic among new entrants.
  • Panelists name private companies they'd buy in secondary markets: Brad Gerstner cites Sierra and Parlo in AI agent software, Chamath Palihapitiya mentions Revolut, Gavin Baker picks Aria and DriveNets for AI networking, and Jason Calacanis highlights Vast and Zipline.
Also from this episode: (13)

VC (7)

  • Brad Gerstner shows secondary market volume has doubled since the 2021 peak. Secondary buying into companies like Anduril, Anthropic, and SpaceX now represents 31% of all primary venture activity.
  • Gavin Baker argues private markets are necessary for employee liquidity, as people become wealthy on paper but cash-poor. He states a clear trend of companies staying private for longer.
  • Chamath Palihapitiya and Gavin Baker agree there is no good reason for companies to stay private longer. Chamath argues it's because founders dislike public market scrutiny and prefer an easier life.
  • Kelly Rodriguez says public company CEOs become investment managers, which is less fun than being a visionary product leader. She sees Schwab's acquisition of Forge as legitimizing private equity as a real asset class.
  • Gerstner admits he is selling into the secondary market to return DPI to LPs, a fiduciary duty. He contrasts this with venture capitalists who traditionally focus only on buying.
  • Jason Calacanis describes a new 'third way' exit beyond M&A and IPO: pari-passu secondary sales alongside founders. He says early-stage VCs now sell at every chance once portfolio companies hit $500M valuations.
  • Gavin Baker observes venture firms without exposure to trillion-dollar private companies face franchise risk and engage in 'unnatural' call-option investing. Firms with exposure can be more disciplined.

Big Tech (1)

  • Chamath recounts Mark Zuckerberg's belief that being public earlier would have pressured Facebook to correct its mistaken HTML5 strategy sooner. He highlights the sycophantic nature of private investor feedback.

Startups (2)

  • Rodriguez says Forge got permissioned SpaceX SPVs in 2018-2019. The pitch to founders leverages Schwab's retail distribution to democratize access and provide broad-based ownership at the IPO price.
  • Kelly Rodriguez explains Forge is building exchange-like infrastructure for systematic secondary trading. New products like interval funds with $500 minimums are opening access to unaccredited investors.

Markets (3)

  • Brad Gerstner expresses caution for retail investors, warning against YOLO-ing into high-fee SPVs. He advocates for thoughtful allocation, citing recent big public market moves and the need for durable democratization.
  • Baker notes long-only mutual funds like Fidelity are capped at 3-5% privates by internal policy. When a company IPOs and lockup expires, it frees up hundreds of billions in dry powder for late-stage demand.
  • Brad Gerstner says current tech valuations are 'fully valued' after parabolic moves. He warns retail investors need staying power to survive inevitable drawdowns, unlike the YOLO crowd that buys the top.
#Macro#Markets#VC#Regulation
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis
Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

Anthropic Files $965B IPO, Trump Signs AI Executive Order, and ChatGPT Crosses 1B Users | EP #262 • Jun 6

  • President Trump signed an executive order rejecting heavy AI regulation, instead asking labs to voluntarily share new models with the government 30 days before public release. Sam Altman said it gets the balance right.
  • Alex Wang believes the executive order responds to the privatization of national security capabilities, like discovering cyber vulnerabilities, citing the emergence of models like Mythos. He frames it as a delicate balance between innovation and security.
  • Imad Ustak argues the U.S. government views AI as key to full-spectrum military dominance, making a 30-day pre-release window a tactical advantage. He contrasts this with Europe's slower, compliance-focused approach.
  • ChatGPT reached one billion monthly active users roughly three years after its November 2022 launch. This growth rate outpaces YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
  • Claude has 56 million monthly active users and is growing at 640% year-over-year. Imad Ustak likens Claude to Apple and OpenAI to Microsoft in their market approaches.
  • OpenAI launched Rosalind Biodefense, providing specialized AI tools to trusted government and health researchers for outbreak detection and vaccine development. Alex Wang sees this as part of a trend where advanced capabilities are carved out from general models for security.
  • Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Peter Diamandis co-signed an open letter urging Congress to require DNA synthesis companies to screen orders to prevent bioterrorism. This followed a 2017 case where a researcher reconstructed horsepox virus with $100,000 of mail-ordered DNA.
  • OpenAI is hiring to build an in-house robotics team focused on supporting skilled workers and personal robots. Imad Ustak notes the team is led by former Sora researcher Aditya Ramesh and believes the robotics market is far larger than the GPU market.
  • Anthropic confidentially filed for an IPO, potentially becoming the first major frontier AI lab to go public. Polymarket gives a 60% chance its market cap surpasses $1.8 trillion on the first day.
  • Anthropic generates about $9.4 million in revenue per employee, nearly four times the rate of Apple or Google. The company could reach a trillion-dollar valuation in roughly five years.
  • Microsoft unveiled seven in-house AI models at Build 2026, built from scratch without OpenAI's weights. Alex Wang assesses them as mid-tier, lagging behind current frontier models from Anthropic and OpenAI.
  • Senator Bernie Sanders proposed the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would require major AI companies to contribute 50% of their stock to a public fund. Dave Morin argues the idea is impractical because selling that much stock would crash the market.
  • Torsten Sløk's analysis finds AI is currently a net job creator, with companies like Cognizant hiring 20,000 graduates. Dave Morin observes employment in his network is up due to non-technical domain experts becoming builders with AI.
  • Nvidia is launching its first Arm-based PC processors, the N-1 and N-1X. Imad Ustak sees this as a play to own the intelligent edge and block AMD's Strix Halo, aiming to be the substrate for in-home AI agents.
Also from this episode: (5)

AI Infrastructure (1)

  • Satya Nadella stated that with new cooling systems, a data center's annual water usage equals that of a single restaurant. Peter Diamandis contrasts this with California almond farming, which uses 1.3 trillion gallons per year versus 150 billion for all U.S. data centers.

Media (1)

  • Trust in media has fallen to 19%, down from a peak of 80% in the mid-1970s. Dave Morin attributes this to a revenue-driven death spiral where quality journalism is replaced by fluff.

Longevity (3)

  • Russia committed $26 billion to anti-aging research, targeting 3D printed tissues, transplantable organs, and epigenetic reprogramming by 2030. The goal is to save 175,000 lives this decade.
  • NewLimit, co-founded by Brian Armstrong, raised $435 million at a $3.1 billion valuation to develop epigenetic reprogramming therapies, with human clinical studies for alcohol-related liver disease targeted for next year.
  • The $101 million XPRIZE Healthspan competition has 830 teams aiming to reverse functional aging by 20 years within a year of therapy. Peter Diamandis expects a winner by 2030.
#Startups#AI Infrastructure#Big Tech#Regulation
Hard Fork
Hard Fork

Casey Newton

Hot I.P.O Summer + What Is A.I. Doing to Math? + HatGPT • Jun 5

  • Kevin Roose describes SpaceX as a conglomerate containing two strong businesses, reusable rockets and Starlink internet, and two weaker ones, XAI and X, the social network. He notes XAI now rents compute to Anthropic.
  • Anthropic filed a confidential S1 to go public. Kevin Roose notes its annualized revenue run rate hit $1 billion in January 2025, representing unprecedented growth from its early days as a small safety-focused research group.
  • Casey Newton argues the impending IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI will exacerbate inequality in San Francisco. He says mid-six-figure earners now feel precarious compared to potential millionaires minted by these companies.
  • Anthropic's co-founders pledged 80% of their wealth to charity, and the company matches employee equity pledges to philanthropy 3-to-1 for early hires. This will create a massive influx of philanthropic capital after the IPO.
  • Kevin Roose worries that going public will pressure AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic to prioritize speed over safety, as public markets and activist investors demand growth.
  • Casey Newton counters that public markets could introduce democratic oversight, forcing companies to disclose financials and earnings, providing levers for accountability that don't currently exist.
  • In May 2025, an OpenAI model disproved the unit distance conjecture, a significant geometry problem on Paul Erdős's list. Kevin Hartnett says mathematicians viewed this as a top-tier research result publishable in top journals.
  • Kevin Hartnett says mathematicians hold three views on AI: dismissive, fearful it will make them obsolete, and optimistic it acts as a cognitive jetpack. He believes the optimistic Terry Tao camp is currently winning.
  • Over 800 mathematicians signed the Leiden Declaration, expressing deep concern that AI-generated proofs are hard to verify and could erode the human foundations of the discipline. The arXiv archive now bans users for a year if unedited AI text is detected.
  • President Trump signed an executive order asking tech companies to voluntarily give the government a 30-day review period for new AI models before release, a reduction from an earlier 90-day draft requirement.
  • A San Francisco startup, The Bot Company, is being sued for $12,383.50 after secretly using an Airbnb to train robots, which allegedly damaged the property and violated rental terms.
Also from this episode: (1)

Startups (1)

  • SpaceX plans to sell shares at $135 in its upcoming IPO, raising $75 billion. This would value the conglomerate at $1.75 to $2 trillion, making it the largest IPO in history.
#Macro#Markets#Startups#Regulation

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