Anthropic's IPO Could Make 1,000 Employees Worth $100M. Here's What Early Investors Made

Good morning, crowd! ☕

In 2021, a few people wrote checks to a tiny AI lab almost nobody had heard of. This month, that lab is set to go public at a valuation investors have discussed at $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion. Some early backers are sitting on gains of 100x or more. And around 1,000 of its employees could become worth more than $100 million each.

Today is all about one lesson: which company you back, and how early, matters more than anything else.

In today's Founderscrowds:

• 🧾 The Anthropic IPO, by the numbers

• 🐣 Who got rich backing Anthropic early, and one $100B+ mistake

• 💰 Why 1,000+ employees could be worth $100M each

• 🏆 The greatest early bets of all time, from Google to SpaceX

• 📐 The math every early investor needs to know

Photo: Anthropic

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🧾 THE BIG STORY

THE IPO

🧾 Anthropic's IPO: The Numbers You Need

Image: Anthropic

The scoop: Anthropic, the maker of Claude, filed to go public on October 26 and plans to list on Nasdaq under the ticker ANT. It aims to start trading before Thanksgiving. The price range hasn't been set yet.

The details:

• $16.95B in revenue last quarter alone, and $33.2B in the first nine months of 2026, about 12x the year before

• Still deep in the red: a $23.3B net loss last quarter, much of it from accounting charges on convertible notes

• Its last private round valued it at $965B in May. Investors have discussed $1.5T to $2T for the IPO

• Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley lead a group of about 22 banks

Why it matters: In five years, Anthropic went from a startup with no product to one of the most valuable companies on Earth. That kind of rise is what creates the life-changing returns below.

Read the latest numbers

🐣 THE EARLY BIRDS

THE WINNERS

🐣 Who Got Rich Backing Anthropic Early

Image: Anthropic, from its Amazon partnership announcement

The setup: Anthropic raised its first $124M in 2021, led by Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. Every round since has been priced higher, and the early checks have exploded in value.

The scoreboard:

• Spark Capital led the 2023 round at a valuation of about $4B. The company was valued at $965B in May, roughly 230x higher

• Menlo Ventures put in more than $1B over several rounds. Its stake is reportedly worth about $14B

• Amazon has invested about $8B since 2023. Its stake is estimated at $135B to $160B at the $965B price

• Google owns roughly 14%, worth about $135B at that price

• Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO, reportedly owns about 1%, worth nearly $10B

The $100B+ mistake: Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX invested $500M in Anthropic. After FTX collapsed, its bankruptcy estate sold the stake in 2024 for about $1.3B. Before dilution, that 7.84% stake would be worth about $118B at a $1.5T valuation. Ouch.

Why it matters: Getting in early is only half the game. Holding on is the other half.

Early backers · Amazon and Google · The FTX stake

💰 THE MILLIONAIRE FACTORY

THE EMPLOYEES

💰 1,000+ Employees Could Be Worth $100M Each

The headline: A widely shared analysis says that if Anthropic lists at $2T, more than 1,000 employees could each be worth over $100 million. That's roughly everyone who joined before 2024. Another estimate based on the filing puts the number near 940.

Inside Anthropic's office. Photo: Anthropic

Why the numbers are so big:

• Employees hold stock options with an average exercise price of just $2.89 a share. Investors paid about $58.90 a share in May

• Those options were worth $98.2B on paper at the end of June, before any IPO bump

• Anthropic had about 940 employees at the end of 2024. It has about 5,300 today, so the earliest hires hold the biggest slices

• One estimate says about 1 in 70 Americans worth $100M+ would be Anthropic employees

Reality check: These are estimates, not payouts. Anthropic doesn't disclose what each person owns. A more conservative count from the private-market platform Hill sees about 4,250 new millionaires, around 1,200 of them worth $10M+. And employees can't cash out all at once: they can sell 10% on day one, 35% more after 2026 results, and the rest later.

Why it matters: Early employees took equity in a risky startup when it was tiny. That was the real investment, and it's about to pay off on a scale Silicon Valley has never seen.

The $100M estimate · The filing details · Hill's estimate

🧠 POP QUIZ

Before the hall of fame, test your gut. 👀

🏆 THE HALL OF FAME

THE GREATEST EARLY BETS

🏆 Small Checks That Became Fortunes

The list: Here's what angels and VCs made by backing the right company early.

• 🔍 Google, 1998: Stanford's Andy Bechtolsheim and David Cheriton each wrote a $100,000 check. Both became billionaires. Cheriton's check alone is reported to have made him about $10B

• 👍 Facebook, 2004: Peter Thiel put in $500,000 and had taken out more than $1B in cash by 2012. That's about 2,000x

• 👍 Facebook, 2005: Accel invested $12.7M. At the IPO its stake was worth about $9B, roughly 700x

• 🏠 Airbnb, 2009: Y Combinator invested $20,000 for 6%. Airbnb went from a $20M seed valuation to about $100B on IPO day, a 5,000x jump

• 🚗 Uber, 2011: Benchmark invested about $9M at a $60M valuation. Its stake was estimated at ~750x ahead of the IPO

• 💬 WhatsApp, 2011: Sequoia invested about $60M. When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19B, its stake was worth about $3B

• 🚀 SpaceX, 2008: Founders Fund invested about $600M over the years. At SpaceX's IPO in June, its stake was worth more than $50B, about 80x

• 🤖 Anthropic, 2023: Amazon invested about $8B. Its stake is estimated at $135B+

Why it matters: Notice the pattern. None of these were obvious at the time. Google was one of many search engines. Airbnb was air mattresses. Anthropic was a research lab with no product.

Thiel · Accel · Google · Airbnb · Uber · WhatsApp · SpaceX

📐 THE MATH

THE LESSON

📐 Why the Right Company Matters More Than Anything

The big idea: Startup returns follow a power law. Most companies fail or return little. A tiny few return 100x, 1,000x or more, and those few pay for everything else.

What the best early investors do:

• Back huge markets. Search, social, travel, AI. A great company in a small market can only grow so big

• Bet on the team. Ideas change. Slack started as a game, Airbnb sold cereal to survive. Great founders find the way

• Make many bets. Nobody knows in advance which one becomes the next Google. A portfolio gives you more shots

• Be patient. Facebook took 8 years to go public. Airbnb took 12. Anthropic, about 5, which is lightning fast

• Don't sell your winners too early. Just ask the FTX estate

The good news: Early-stage investing used to be only for the rich and well connected. Since 2016, US rules have let everyday investors put money into startups through regulated crowdfunding platforms. Every week, we cover private companies you can actually invest in.

The fine print: Most startups fail, and these investments are hard to sell. Only invest money you can afford to lose.

🎓 Catch up on Founderscrowds

• Anthropic files to list as ANT: what's in the filing

• Google's cloud doubled and its stock fell 8%

• The Private Company Index: what the 100 biggest private companies are worth

That's a wrap. Hit reply and tell us: which private company do you think will be the next Anthropic? We'll share the most popular picks next week. 🚀

See you Thursday,

Jose, Alberto & the Founderscrowds Team

Disclaimer: Founderscrowds is a media company. We are not a broker-dealer, funding portal, investment adviser or financial planner, and we do not collect or hold investor funds. Nothing in this email is investment, legal or tax advice, or an offer to buy or sell any security. Views on any company or deal are the writers' opinions and are not tailored to you. Some content may be sponsored or affiliate-linked, and writers may hold positions in companies we cover. Data comes from third-party sources and is not guaranteed. Private market investments are speculative, illiquid and can lose their entire value, and many offerings are limited to accredited investors.

Quick answers

How many Anthropic employees could become millionaires?

Anthropic had about 5,300 employees as of September 30, 2026. One widely shared analysis estimates more than 1,000 employees could each be worth over $100 million if Anthropic goes public at a $2 trillion valuation, and another estimate based on the S-1 puts the figure near 940. The private-market platform Hill estimates about 4,250 new millionaires in total. Anthropic does not disclose individual holdings, so all figures are estimates.

When is the Anthropic IPO?

Anthropic filed its S-1 with the SEC on October 26, 2026, and plans to list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker ANT. It aims to begin trading before US Thanksgiving in November 2026. The price range had not been set as of November 2.

What are the best early-stage startup investments ever?

Famous examples include Peter Thiel's $500,000 Facebook investment, which returned more than $1 billion; Accel's $12.7 million Facebook stake, worth about $9 billion at the IPO; Benchmark's roughly $9 million Uber investment, estimated at about 750x; Sequoia's roughly $60 million in WhatsApp, worth about $3 billion in the Facebook sale; and Founders Fund's roughly $600 million in SpaceX, worth more than $50 billion at its 2026 IPO.

Who were Anthropic's early investors?

Anthropic's 2021 Series A was led by Jaan Tallinn. FTX led its 2022 round, Spark Capital led its 2023 round, and Menlo Ventures led its early-2024 round. Amazon has invested about $8 billion and Google owns roughly 14%.

Sources

• The National: Anthropic reports $17bn in Q3 revenue

• Billionaires.Africa: Anthropic IPO set to turn staff into millionaires

• IBTimes UK: Anthropic employee stock options value

• MindStudio: Anthropic IPO payout estimates

• KuCoin (citing Hill via Cointelegraph): Anthropic IPO could create 4,257 millionaires

• Dealroom: Anthropic early VC and angel winners

• Fortune: Amazon and Google stakes in Anthropic

• crypto.news: FTX Anthropic stake sale

• Luminix: Anthropic valuation history

• CNN Money: Peter Thiel cashes out of Facebook

• Unquote: Accel 700x Facebook multiple

• Benzinga: The professor who wrote Google its first check

• Crunchbase News: Airbnb and Y Combinator

• Yahoo Finance: Early Airbnb investors

• MENAbytes: Benchmark and Uber

• TechCrunch: Sequoia and WhatsApp

• The Next Web: Founders Fund SpaceX windfall

Anthropic photos and logos are from anthropic.com. Hall of Fame and power-law images are AI-generated illustrations.