a16z: Top private companies worth $2.4T, more than a decade of tech IPOs combined
a16z · x · 2026-10-01
a16z partners David George and Santiago Rodriguez argue the biggest companies are staying private: Anthropic, OpenAI, Databricks, Stripe, Waymo and Revolut add up to $2.4 trillion by last-round valuation — exceeding the $1.7T combined market cap of all tech IPOs from the past decade excluding SpaceX. George's thesis: "the founder is the asset class," and founder-led firms can take bigger, longer-duration swings in private markets, making IPOs just another financing event. Data from a16z's State of Markets II report.
More from AGI Musings
- No signal on the Bay Bridge: AI's broad impact hinges on patchy internet access — soumitrashukla9 · 2026-10-01
- Are LLMs failing human benchmarks because they're superhuman? A cognitive science debate — xuanalogue · 2026-10-01
- AI Memory Could Be the Industry's Biggest Moat, and Portability Is the Real Fight — r0ck3t23 · 2026-10-01
- Alignment debate: prosaic techniques may not scale past ASI, researchers warn — JacquesThibs · 2026-10-01
- Herbie Bradley: faster agents will force rethink of long-task workflows — herbiebradley · 2026-10-01
- Gary Marcus pushes back on doomers: humans are brave and fast under threat — GaryMarcus · 2026-10-01