Money is a story we agree to believe. A dollar buys a dollar's worth because we all act as if it does, and a company is worth whatever the next buyer will pay, not a penny more.
For most of the past century, the biggest stores of that belief were countries and the giant public companies their citizens could actually own a slice of. You could buy Coca-Cola, your local bank, or the carmaker down the highway, and the value sat in plain sight on a stock exchange.
That arrangement is quietly breaking. Some of the most valuable enterprises on Earth are now private, held by venture funds and insiders rather than the public, and ordinary investors stay locked out until the company decides to let them in.
The hottest of them all just took two steps that bring it closer to your brokerage account.
Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) lab behind the Claude chatbot, confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on June 1.
For most of the past century, the biggest stores of that belief were countries and the giant public companies their citizens could actually own a slice of. You could buy Coca-Cola, your local bank, or the carmaker down the highway, and the value sat in plain sight on a stock exchange.
That arrangement is quietly breaking. Some of the most valuable enterprises on Earth are now private, held by venture funds and insiders rather than the public, and ordinary investors stay locked out until the company decides to let them in.
The hottest of them all just took two steps that bring it closer to your brokerage account.
Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) lab behind the Claude chatbot, confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on June 1.
10 hours ago
