E73: Anthropic +400% in 5 months, X.com -57% to $19b, Andreessen is a Techno-Optimist, SpaceX 2nd Starship attempt | Pre-IPO Stock Market Update – Nov 3, 2023

00:10 | Andreessen is a Techno-Optimist
- Marc Andreessen is co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, a $35b AUM venture capital firm
- "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto" celebrates potential of technology, markets, and human intelligence for societal progress and abundance
- Challenges tech stagnation, anti-technology sentiment, and excessive tech regulation
- Created in response to government and public apprehension on AI, the metaverse, nuclear technology, and other emerging tech

01:40 | SpaceX 2nd Starship attempt
- FAA completes safety review of SpaceX's Starship rocket, clearing major hurdle for its second liftoff
- Next US Fish and Wildlife Service review and approve the new water deluge system
- Launch date remains TBD

02:32 | Startup bankruptcies could be a bottoming?
- OliveAI, Convoy, Pebble, Hello Bello all declared bankruptcy or had a fire sale
- Each were big companies that a few years back would have easily been able to raise additional capital to keep going
- Large business failures like this force startup CEOs to recognize that they need to drive to profitability fast in order to control their own destiny and also acknowledge that the valuations of their businesses are not going back to 2021 levels
- The goal is to get to market clearing prices and these realizations are catalysts to get the market there

03:57 | X.com -57% to $19b
- X announced a $19b internal valuation, -57% below the Musk purchase price of $44b
- Musk envisions X as the ‘everything app’, implying integration of functionalities like tweets, YouTube videos, checking accounts, Venmo, merchant payments, sports betting, news article micro-payments, and shopping
- Investment thesis for X centers on Musk's ability to [1] actualize the 'everything app' concept, and [2] its potential adoption by US users akin to Chinese users' engagement with WeChat, the China ‘everything app’
- WeChat a primary product for Tencent with a $373b market cap

06:11 | Anthropic +400% in 5 months
- Google invests $500m now and commits $1.5b in the future at a $25b post-money valuation (source Pitchbook)
- Google previously invested $300m in Apr 2023 for a 10% stake
- Amazon invested $1.25b in Sep 2023, with potential to add $2.75b at a future date

07:18 | Big capital raises
- Anthropic (www.anthropic.com) | $2.0b Series F, $25b valuation
- Pony.ai (www.pony.ai) | $100m Series D2, $8.5b valuation
- Island (www.island.io) | $100m Series C, $1.5b valuation
- Zhizi Automobile (www.xn--i8sq31b1uyx4b.com) | $76m Series B, $1.45b valuation
- AgentSync (www.agentsync.io) | $125m Series B, $1.25b valuation

08:28 | Pre-IPO -0.21% for week
- Week winners: Klarna +2.81%, Rippling +2.41%, Scale.ai +1.53%, Airtable +1.40%, Databricks +0.70%
- Week losers: SpaceX -5.29%, Anthropic -2.82%, Deel -2.54%, Stripe -1.73%, Discord -1.64%
- Top valuations: ByteDance $203b, SpaceX $152b, OpenAI $80b, Stripe $51b, Databricks $47b lead in current valuation

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