Founder @HillMarkets & @River Personal views only. Not my firm's official position. Not investment advice. RTs ≠ endorsements.
San Francisco, CA
Joined March 2009
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SpaceX millionaires 4,000 x $1mil , 400 x $100 mil
Every employee who joined before the first succesful launch made (unless they sold early) more than $100 million.
SpaceX lists June 12 at ~$1.75T.
Work backward from the cap table. At $1.75T, clearing $100M takes ~0.0057% of the company.
- 2002–2008, first ~500 in: joined at a ~$50M company. Held to $1.75T = a 17,000x. The core of the club — maybe 150–250 left holding
- September 2008, SpaceX has first successful launch
- 2010–2016: joined at $1B–$10B. Needs a senior grant — directors, principal engineers, early Starlink. ~100–200
- C-suite + board: Shotwell, Johnsen past $1B. A layer of SVPs below them clears $100M on equity, not salary. ~20–40
- Post-2016: joined at $20B–$350B. To hit $100M you'd have needed ~0.4% of the company. Impossible for an employee. This is the millionaire tier — almost none reach $100M
The tally:
~400–500 at $100M+
A few dozen above $500M
A handful of billionaires past Musk
Same building. Same mission. Two orders of magnitude apart — set entirely by what year you walked in.
Early isn't a strategy. It's a date stamp.
You promise someone they can buy your shares at 300 billion valuation - 10 million shares for 20 billion. They give $20 billion.
Your valuation is now 1.5 trillion. That 10 million shares is worth $100 billion. You have to buy those shares in the market and give it to them.
So you spend a $100 bill buying the shares, and they forgive you for the $20 bill you owe them.
Thats your -$80 bill
xitter.cf/unpopularvc/status/211…
Why didn’t Sequoia prevent Spark from taking pro-rata @YasminRazavi ?
xitter.cf/vvkgopalan/status/2114…
😂 Anthropic should hack Palantir back to show them how insecure they are… but that would destroy the company
xitter.cf/ssankar/status/2114705…
Are we ready? Are we serious?
This is an undeclared emergency. You thought you were still inside the secure bastion of the king’s castle. You have awoken in Helm’s Deep. The orc armies are coming.
Cathedral’s AI agents were inside Anthropic’s most sensitive model Slack channels in under 12 hours. Frontier AI is dual-use national power. Agent-speed offense has already outrun static defenses and private channels.
Build the post-AI secure bastion. Move what you can into it. Harden the crown jewels.
But deterrence is not restored by better walls alone. It is restored by American builders who can see the battlefield, operate at machine speed, and project both defense and offense.
Bat signal for the Heretics.
Here we go
xitter.cf/firstadopter/status/21…
Isn’t she super progressive ? xitter.cf/barakgila/status/21136…
Two brothers from rural Ireland built a $159B company.
And they still haven't taken it public.
Here's who got rich from Stripe.
Patrick Collison grew up in a village in Tipperary.
At 16 he won Ireland's Young Scientist prize. He'd written his own programming language.
At 19 he and his brother John sold their first startup. John was 17.
Then came Stripe. Seven lines of code to take a payment online.
In 2011 two PayPal founders wrote seed checks.
Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Stripe was valued at around $20M.
Fifteen years later, Stripe tried to buy PayPal.
A $53B bid with Advent in July. They walked away in August.
Stripe didn't need it.
It moved $1.9T in payments last year, up 34%.
It's profitable. Staff cash out through tender offers every year.
The last one, in February, valued Stripe at $159B.
On Forge, shares now imply about $184B.
So where does $159B go?
Tier 1. The founders
- Patrick and John Collison
- $17.5B each, per Forbes
- $35B between two brothers. Patrick is 38. John is 36.
Tier 2. The angels
- Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, SV Angel
- Bought in at around $20M
- The company has since marked up about 8,000x
Tier 3. The funds
- Sequoia has backed Stripe since the seed round
- Its stake was worth about $8.6B in 2024, at a $70B mark
- At $159B, that's roughly $19B
- Then a16z, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Thrive, Coatue, Fidelity
Tier 4. The first 200 employees, 2010 to 2013
- Joined when Stripe was worth under $2B
- Tens of millions each. Some far more
- Employee #1, Darragh Buckley, now owns part of a bank
Tier 5. The builders, 2014 to 2018
- About 1,500 people
- Joined between $3.5B and $20B
- $3M to $10M each
Tier 6. The hypergrowth wave, 2019 to 2021
- About 5,000 people
- Joined between $35B and $95B
- $1M to $3M each
Tier 7. Everyone since
- About 4,000 people
- Many joined during the reset to $50B
- Low six figures to $1.5M each
Add it up.
Somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 Stripe millionaires.
All without an IPO.
One more name.
In 2010 an MIT student named Greg Brockman joined Stripe.
He became its first CTO. Then he left in 2015.
He went on to co-found OpenAI.
Bloomberg now puts him at $25.5B. More than either brother.
This is reads like a HR article
xitter.cf/camirusso/status/21130…
this polymarket article is such a weird non-story. throughout the entire article it's one bombshell-seeming revelation after another, only to be quickly backtracked one paragraph later.
- @shayne_coplan while paying himself no salary, used company money to pay for basic expenses, and then at his own initiative paid that money back
- is now in the process of scaling his company as it's become one of the few crypto businesses to break into the mainstream, by bringing senior hires etc.
- running a prediction market has been difficult from a regulatory perspective in the US (shocker)
surprised at the private jets and investor pressure clickbait headline from bloomberg
Polymarket aggregated is more than Kalshi 🤔
xitter.cf/4caster20/status/21129…
Never go to war with such a man
xitter.cf/onodacapital/status/21…
Great summary of the numbers
xitter.cf/jadunigan2/status/2112…
The Anthropic IPO roadshow is expected to begin the week of November 9th. The public S1 has to be filed on EDGAR at least 15 days before the roadshow. There are no EDGAR filings on weekends. A November 9 Anthropic roadshow start would require that the public S1 filing take place no later than Friday. The S1 will validate what Anthropic reportedly told key investors on October 14th: Q3 revenue was $16.8 B ($70 B ARR) and they expect their year-end ARR to be $110 B.
OpenAI completed a $122 B funding round in March. The company met with long only funds and sovereign wealth funds on a new funding round of $30 B. OAI reportedly needs the capital to fund infrastructure commitments and bolster its balance sheet in case its IPO is delayed. It wants to complete the round before Anthropic pre-IPO financial disclosures. OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra accelerated its growth and pushed its ARR to $50 B. They expect a $70 B ARR by year end.
Anthropic seeks a $2 T IPO valuation on $110 B year end ARR, an 18.2X multiple. Last week its investors pressed for a $1.5 T valuation, a 13.6X multiple. Anthropic reports gross revenue. OpenAI reports net revenue. Anthropic pays 16% to sales partners. Adjusting $110 B year end ARR for that puts net ARR at $92.4 B. $1.5 T IPO valuation then has 16.2X multiple. 16.2 X multiple and OpenAI year end ARR puts its IPO valuation at $1.1 T. Labs should take what they can get.
SpaceX reports after the close. Total revenue is expected to be ~12.8 B, with AI revenue half of that. Musk has shorted a monthly release cadence of from scratch new Grok models. GrokBot is a hit and may drive a SpaceX AI revenue beat. Grok 4.8 is due this month, 4.9 in November, and 5.0 by year end. A SPCX AI beat and Grok 4.8 release before OpenAI new funding round could unnerve its backers. Ditto for Anthropic investors if 4.9 drops before its pre Thanksgiving IPO.
Insane. Buffett compounded at 19.7%
Elon is compounding at almost 3x Buffett 54%!!!!
xitter.cf/gabriel_zucman/status/…
Now let’s look at the math behind your proposal.
You propose to give 1 share of @SpaceX stock to each of the roughly 72 million Americans under 18 next year.
This would amount to giving roughly 1% of your wealth: $10 billion out of nearly $1,000 billion.
For comparison, your wealth has grown at an average annual compound rate of 54% over the last 14 years.
Well well well
xitter.cf/zerohedge/status/21122…
Anthropic’s nonprofit will be the third largest economy on Earth.
Assumptions: $1.5T baseline. Each milestone is a 50% compounding increase. The board approves every tranche. Founder stakes per Forbes.
Founders, about 9.6%:
- Seven co-founders at just over 1.7% each, about 12% combined
- In 2023 each held more than 6%. Dilution since then took them to 1.7%
- Each pledged 80% of their equity at founding
- At $1.5T: about $20B pledged per founder, $144B combined
Employees, about 1.5%:
- About half of roughly 5,000 staff pledge shares
- Hired before 2025: can pledge up to 50% of their grant
- Hired since 2025: up to 25%
- At $1.5T: about $22B
Employee match, about 3.9%:
- Paid in company shares, so it dilutes other holders like the fund does
- 3:1 for pre-2025 hires, 1:1 for newer hires
- Already a non-cash expense of more than $660M in six months
- At $1.5T: about $58B
Fund, initial stake:
- 5% at the $1.5T baseline, worth $75B
Fund, six additional tranches:
- Tranche 1: +2% at $2.25T, worth $45B. Fund at 7%
- Tranche 2: +2% at $3.38T, worth $68B. Fund at 9%
- Tranche 3: +2% at $5.06T, worth $101B. Fund at 11%
- Tranche 4: +2% at $7.59T, worth $152B. Fund at 13%
- Tranche 5: +2% at $11.39T, worth $228B. Fund at 15%
- Tranche 6: +2% at $17.09T, worth $342B. Fund at 17%
The total at $17.09T:
- Fund: 17%, about $2.9T
- Founders: 9.6%, about $1.6T, or roughly $235B pledged per founder
- Employee match: 3.9%, about $670B
- Employees: 1.5%, about $255B
- Total: 32%, about $5.5T
Where the shares come from:
- From the company, diluting everyone: fund plus match, up to about 21%
- From individuals' own holdings: founders plus employees, about 11%
xitter.cf/anthropicai/status/211…
We’re committing a portion of Anthropic’s shares to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, a new wholly owned entity dedicated entirely to the public benefit.
It will start off with 5% of our shares. For every 50% increase in the company’s value over a set baseline, we can contribute up to an extra 2%, subject to our board’s discretion.
In total, this means that roughly 20% of Anthropic’s shares are committed to the public good. Our co-founders have already pledged to donate 80% of their equity, and around half our employees are donating a portion of their equity as part of a donation matching program we’ve run since our founding.
In the post below, we share more details about our new fund.
anthropic.com/news/public-be…
OpenCode, a popular coding app, is getting hacked by agents. It got special access to Daybreak Blue, OpenAI’s cyber defense model, and is going to use it 24/7.
How is this not in the market’s revenue model for the frontier firms ?
xitter.cf/thdxr/status/211183134…
This is simply an artifact of the market they’re trying to sell on which has low liquidity.
xitter.cf/autonomous_chad/status…
Looks like Polymarket investors got SCAMMED
> In August they bought $1B at $21B valuation
> Now they can't sell even $5k at $11B valuation
that's a solid -50% in 48 days
and even at that price there are NO buyers.
A2DAO, a crypto OTC platform recently listed a sale for Polymarket equity at $11.65B valuation ($112 per share)
For the 2 days that the campaign was online only $5k worth were bought out of the $2M proposed for sale.
They sale was supposed to last for 20 days but they just removed it from the platform entirely.
Ironic.
VCs thought they were going to IPO and dump on the public, yet they are the ones that got dumped on
Let’s talk a little bit about Anthropic valuations
- Est end 2026 ARR $110 billion
- At 20x P/S Valuation = $2.2 trillion
- Main problem - market remains skeptical of big tech in general and specifically the high capex that all these firms are being forced into
xitter.cf/wallstengine/status/21…
ANTHROPIC IPO VALUATION EXPECTATIONS DROP TO ~$1.5T FROM $2T: RTRS
Some existing and prospective investors are reconsidering the Claude maker's valuation ahead of its anticipated November IPO, according to Reuters.
Anthropic reported Q3 revenue of $16.8B, up 45% QoQ, compared with growth of more than 100% in Q2, when revenue reached $11.6B.
Despite reporting adjusted profitability, the slowdown disappointed some investors, with a broader tech selloff and concerns over rising AI infrastructure costs adding pressure.
The company has committed to spending at least $518B on cloud computing and infrastructure over the next decade.
Source: Reuters.
true if big
xitter.cf/michaelfkane/status/21…
Anthropic showed investors its Q3 numbers yesterday. Here is what was reported, and what is still inference.
The setting:
- A full day of presentations at Anthropic's San Francisco headquarters, per the FT
- Shown privately to institutional investors. The public S-1 has not been filed yet
- Bloomberg says the roadshow could start the week of November 9
The revenue:
- Q1 2026: $4.7B
- Q2 2026: $11.5B, up about 143% quarter over quarter
- Q3 2026: $16.8B, up about 46%
- Q3 alone is about 3.6x Anthropic's entire 2025 revenue of roughly $4.6B
- Simple annualized pace: about $67B. SemiAnalysis separately estimates about $74B
- The quarterly dollar gain shrank, from about $6.9B to about $5.2B
The profitability, as reported:
- Adjusted gross margin of 85%, per Bloomberg
- Adjusted operating margin of about 11%, excluding stock-based compensation
- Second straight quarter of adjusted profit
- Cash flow positive in Q3, per multiple reports
- $1.70 of revenue for every $1 spent on compute
What the compute number implies:
- $16.8B of revenue at $1.70 per compute dollar means roughly $9.9B spent on compute in Q3
- That is a compute margin of about 41%
- One read circulating on X: if inference costs only 15% of revenue, about 75% of compute is going to training and R&D
- That math depends on what "adjusted" excludes. Earlier FT reporting said the gross margin figure excluded partner revenue share and training costs
The competition:
- Ramp's spend data showed Anthropic overtaking OpenAI in business adoption in May, 41% to 39%
- By early Q3, the lead was about 43.5% to 39.7%
- But in Q3, OpenAI's enterprise spend grew faster: 82% quarter over quarter, against Anthropic's 76%, per Ramp economist Ara Kharazian
The deal announced the day before:
- Anthropic licensed technology from Opaque, a confidential computing startup, and is hiring much of its team
- CEO Aaron Fulkerson announced it. Terms were not disclosed
- Opaque lets companies run AI on sensitive data while keeping it encrypted during computation
- It came out of UC Berkeley research and was last valued at about $300M
- The fit: enterprises that want sovereign, on-premise or private AI deployments
The frame: revenue grew by $5.2B in a single quarter, with positive cash flow.
But the growth rate fell by two thirds, and the main rival is gaining speed.
Investors heard a story of efficiency. The roadshow will decide whether it is worth $2T.
