Last night was special.
Election days just never get old for us at Polymarket. Watching regular people experience the beauty of market based forecasts as the results come in. How practically useful it is. How simple it is to interpret. When it clicks, it clicks.
It’s now routinely hours between when prediction markets call it versus the TV networks. The networks hold out until absolute certainty, and the suspense keeps it entertaining all night. No knock to them, but now there’s Polymarket, and many people are realizing they want to know what's happening in real time.
I know the industry has gained a mixed rap for a variety of reasons, many of which are criticisms with real merit. But I think I speak for both myself and my peers when I say we got into this because we really love the idea of markets being able to place a price on the future (e.g. Democrats had a 92% chance to take the House on Polymarket), and how that can help people better understand what's likely to happen and make decisions accordingly.
Our mission is to make sure we deliver on the promise of prediction markets, which was on full display last night. In the midst of so much noise around what we do, the American people get to see what Polymarket is really all about. Feels like one step closer to the dream. Onwards.
fries in the bag lil bro
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel
Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
its going to be like figma/coin listing
Who actually gets rich if Anthropic lists at $2 trillion?
The S-1 filed on Monday lets us answer from the filing itself.
The reported target is $1.5T to $2T, listing the week of November 16. The filing implies about 16.9B fully diluted shares. So $2T works out to roughly $118 a share.
The cap table at $2T:
- $199B for the 7 controlling co-founders, about 10%
- $28B for Ben Mann, if his stake matches theirs
- $100B for the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, 5%
- $331B in employee options and RSUs, about 17% , That pool covers about 5,300 employees, an average of $62M each.
- But when you joined matters enormously.
The S-1 shows how much equity was granted each year, and at what price. [
Headcount went from about 300 to 500 in late 2023, to 940 at end 2024, to 5,300 now.
Match the two, and here is roughly how many people made what at $2T:
- $110M to $400M each: ~300 to 500 people hired by 2023
- $200M to $300M each: ~440 to 640 hired in 2024
- $70M to $95M each: ~1,360 hired in 2025
- $10M to $20M each: ~3,000 hired in 2026
So about 940 people hired by the end of 2024 average nine figures. Everyone hired since averages eight figures.
The 2024 class is the surprise. That year Anthropic granted 1.28B options at $1.30 a share. At $118, that one year of grants is worth about $133B.
Then there is the tender. In April, holders could sell at $25.91 a share. Investors lined up $6B, but only $4.7B sold.
Weeks later, Series H priced at $58.90 a share. At $2T, the people who held would be up 4.6x. And Dario and Daniela Amodei were among the sellers.
The 7 founders have pledged 80% of their equity to charity. That is about $159B at $2T. But the S-1 says the pledges are not legally binding.
Millennials: The Rug Pull Generation.
Study hard and you'll get a good job. 2008 financial crisis.
Work hard and you'll own a home. Housing crisis.
Build a career and enjoy stability. Gig economy and layoffs.
Enjoy your prime years. Global pandemic.
Save for your future. Inflation.
Finally, AI might free us from working our lives away. Potential World War III.
