This week on Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down the Anthropic roadshow numbers and leaked internal forecasts, Nvidia securing a $500B financing coalition of six Wall Street giants, and the SpaceX $60B acquisition of Cursor.
Plus: the Canva growth slowdown rattles its IPO case, Databricks becomes a top-5 private company at $190B, and Aman celebrates the NYC launch of his new book, A Brief History of Financial Bubbles.
00:00 – cold open
00:45 – [ tech and vc news ]
00:56 – Aman’s “History of Financial Bubbles” book launch 📖
01:20 – are we in a bubble right now? 🫧
02:00 – Anthropic IPO in Sept/Oct? ⏳️
05:30 – Nvidia mobilizes $500B with 6 Finance Giants 🏢
11:22 – AI race: Anthropic is Secretariat, OpenAI is Twice a Prince 🏇
12:06 – potential timeline for OpenAI IPO 🤷♂️
14:22 – SpaceX acquires Cursor for $60B 🤑
16:11 – Canva growth rates slow down, valuation cut 😢
20:55 – Stripe acquires OpenRouter for $7B 💳
22:41 – Silver Lake takes Workday private 🔐
24:26 – Databricks valued at $190B 💰
26:17 – Kalshi and Cognition raise at $40B valuation each 🏅
29:02 – [ valuation corner: Hadrian @ $8B ]
33:00 – solving long-standing problems in weapons manufacturing 🏹
33:28 – can set up new production lines in months, not years 🏭
35:00 – signed massive contract with US Navy 🚢
[ links ]
[ invest = https://practicalvc.com ]
[ trading places socials = www.linktr.ee/tradingplacespod ]
[ aman verjee = https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-verjee | https://x.com/amanverjee ]
[ dave mcclure = https://www.linkedin.com/in/davemcclure | https://x.com/davemcclure ]
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. We may hold positions in companies discussed. Do your own research.
#Anthropic #IPO #VentureCapital #DefenseTech #PrivateMarkets
