Summary of Predicting the SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic IPOs — With Dick Costolo

Overview of Predicting the SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic IPOs — With Dick Costolo

Alex Kantrowitz talks with former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo about what could be the most consequential IPO wave in tech history: SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The conversation focuses on how public markets will react to huge valuations, sky-high expectations, and very different founder narratives. Costolo also shares lessons from taking Twitter public, the importance of managing internal expectations around stock volatility, and the broader social and political backlash building around AI infrastructure.

Key Takeaways

• The IPOs will be judged as much by narrative as by financials.
  Costolo argues that the story a company tells before going public can shape how investors interpret every quarter afterward.

• Public market scrutiny is a different game than private-market growth.
  Once public, companies must explain quarterly results, profitability paths, and how current spending connects to future cash flow.

• Elon, Sam, and Dario will face very different reception dynamics.

  • Elon Musk is seen as the best at selling a long-term vision and keeping investors focused on the future.
  • Sam Altman / OpenAI may face the hardest questions because of the scale of explicit compute commitments and the need to justify massive spending.
  • Dario Amodei / Anthropic may have the cleanest, most consistent enterprise story, though it may not create the biggest spectacle.

• AI infrastructure may become a political flashpoint.
  Costolo thinks public backlash against data centers could become a major headwind, with moratoriums and local opposition likely to grow.

• There’s a widening divide in Silicon Valley.
  He also discusses the “permanent underclass” feeling among people outside the biggest AI winners, and warns against a life of constant comparison.

IPO Outlook: SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic

SpaceX

Costolo is highly bullish on the market’s willingness to buy Elon Musk’s story.

• He thinks SpaceX could open at an enormous valuation, potentially above $2 trillion on day one.
• The key driver is not near-term fundamentals, but belief in Elon’s ability to execute and frame the company as the future of connectivity and space infrastructure.
• He expects the story to center on:
  • Starlink as the global connectivity layer
  • Longer-term fantasies like data centers in space
• Even if the valuation looks disconnected from current revenue, he thinks Musk’s narrative control and the likely small float will create intense demand.

OpenAI

Costolo thinks OpenAI will face much tougher scrutiny than SpaceX.

• Sam Altman has made large, explicit compute and infrastructure commitments that now need to be justified in public markets.
• The challenge is not whether OpenAI can build impressive products — it clearly can — but whether the economics will work at the scale it has committed to.
• He believes OpenAI may do very well on day one, but:
  • investors will immediately ask how costs map to revenue
  • the company will be under a much harsher quarter-to-quarter microscope
• He notes that agentic coding and products like Codex are helping OpenAI’s case by demonstrating real usage growth.

Anthropic

Costolo sees Anthropic as the most balanced of the three.

• Anthropic has leaned into a consistent enterprise-focused strategy.
• He suggests that being a bit less hyped may actually help them in public markets.
• Compared with the other two:
  • less spectacle than Elon
  • less burden from explicit large-dollar commitments than OpenAI
• He thinks Anthropic may be the most stable long-term story, even if the market caps of all three are similarly huge.

Lessons from Twitter’s IPO

Costolo uses Twitter’s public debut as a cautionary tale.

• Before Twitter went public, the company framed itself as a global service with a path to a billion users.
• That narrative became the benchmark by which the market judged the company.
• Even when revenue or EBITDA beats were solid, missing user-growth expectations hurt the stock.
• His big lesson:
  • prepare your team for public-market volatility
  • stock prices can swing dramatically without any material change in the business
  • internal communication matters as much as external messaging

Risks and Headwinds for AI IPOs

1. Price Wars and Thin Margins

A major risk is that competition could compress pricing.

• The AI labs may be so close to parity that instead of raising prices, they could end up in a price war.
• That would make it harder to justify trillion-dollar valuations.

2. Infrastructure and Local Backlash

Costolo thinks the bigger issue may be public opposition to compute expansion.

• Data centers are becoming unpopular across the political spectrum.
• He cites growing concern over:
  • land use
  • environmental impact
  • limited local job creation
  • “not in my backyard” resistance
• He believes moratoriums on data centers could become a serious political issue by 2028.

3. The Need to Tell a National Story

He argues AI companies need to do a better job of explaining why their buildout matters.

• The current debate is too focused on internal feuds and valuation fights.
• The more effective message would be:
  • if the U.S. doesn’t build this infrastructure, China could win
  • the stakes are strategic, not just financial

4. Are These Really Platforms?

Costolo pushes back on the idea that OpenAI and Anthropic are already true “platforms.”

• He cites the idea that a platform should create more value for its users than for itself.
• If OpenAI and Anthropic are capturing the majority of startup AI revenue, they may be powerful businesses — but not yet broad platforms in the classic sense.

Meta, Twitter, and Product Resilience

The second half of the conversation turns to Meta and Twitter/X.

Meta

Costolo says Meta’s biggest issue may be management trust, not just product performance.

• Repeated layoffs create anxiety and skepticism.
• Multiple rounds of “reduction in force” with shifting explanations make employees feel spun.
• He thinks Mark Zuckerberg is highly strategic, but the company is hurting itself by not giving a stable, believable narrative.

Twitter/X

He also argues that Twitter’s core product remains surprisingly resilient.

• Despite changes to the feed and the company’s ownership, text-based social posting still works.
• He credits much of the product’s recent effectiveness to Nikita Bier’s product instincts.
• His broader point: people keep declaring Twitter dead, but the format remains durable.

The “Permanent Underclass” and AI Inequality

Kantrowitz and Costolo close on the idea that AI is creating extreme winner-take-most outcomes.

• A tiny group of people at top AI companies may become extremely wealthy.
• Everyone else may feel locked out of the upside.
• Costolo’s advice:
  • don’t live in comparison
  • comparing yourself to others is a losing strategy
  • people should develop a broader understanding of life beyond functional career success
• He argues that Silicon Valley’s obsession with status, compensation, and missed lottery tickets is emotionally corrosive.

Bottom Line

This episode is less a prediction about exact IPO timing than a framework for understanding how the next wave of tech public offerings will be judged.

• Elon may dominate on story and charisma.
• OpenAI may be the most financially scrutinized.
• Anthropic may have the most credible long-term enterprise path.
• But all three will face the same core question once public:
  Can the market keep believing the future is big enough to justify the present?