It’s not often that investors encounter something truly new in markets. But they will soon when Space Exploration Technologies Corp., OpenAI and Anthropic PBC go public with trillion-dollar valuations, or close to it. No company listed in the US has ever come to market so extravagantly priced — by a long shot.
All three are undeniably groundbreaking businesses with mindboggling potential in transformative fields. Companies with that profile typically demand a big down payment from investors for future growth. But these initial public offerings put that proposition on steroids — never have investors been asked to wager so much on an uncertain future. From these valuations, it’s hard to imagine the three debutantes delivering a post-IPO payoff anywhere near what publicly traded technology giants have produced in recent decades.
