Will OpenAI or Anthropic IPO first?
I woke up this morning and checked Kalshi, as I always do, and saw something that genuinely made me scratch my head: the market on whether OpenAI or Anthropic will IPO first is sitting at a virtually dead-even split. We’re looking at a 50% YES price for OpenAI and a 47% NO price for Anthropic (meaning the market gives Anthropic a 47% chance to go public before OpenAI, or roughly a 50/50 shot either way). A three-point spread between YES and NO is basically a coin flip in my book.
Now, I get that this is a fascinating market. These are two of the biggest names in AI, shaping the future and commanding insane valuations in the private markets. People have strong opinions. And with a trading volume of 46,190 contracts and open interest clocking in at 20,359 contracts, there’s serious money and conviction behind both sides of this trade. This isn't just a handful of folks making speculative bets; it's a significant portion of the prediction market community weighing in on a major finance question.
But a 50/50 split? That just doesn't feel right to me. When I see such even odds on something as complex as a tech IPO, my immediate thought is always: what critical, structural difference are people overlooking? And in this case, I think it’s OpenAI’s unconventional corporate structure versus Anthropic’s more traditional path.
Let’s talk OpenAI first. We all know the story: it’s structured as a capped-profit entity, sitting underneath a non-profit foundation. Its primary goal, as stated, isn’t to maximize shareholder returns in the traditional sense, but to build AGI that benefits humanity. Investors in its for-profit arm participate in a capped return — a multiple of their investment, but not an unlimited one. Microsoft is a huge investor, sure, but their relationship is also unique. This isn't a typical Silicon Valley startup gearing up for a splashy IPO to enrich early investors with uncapped returns.
An IPO, in its essence, is about raising public capital and providing liquidity to early investors and employees through a public market where shares can be freely traded and valued. OpenAI’s entire structure seems designed, almost explicitly, to complicate or even circumvent a traditional IPO. If they *were* to IPO, they’d have to fundamentally re-evaluate or restructure their capped-profit model, which could be a massive undertaking. Their mission-driven, non-profit-controlled nature creates a pretty significant friction point for a conventional public offering. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it introduces a layer of complexity and philosophical hurdles that Anthropic doesn't have.
Now consider Anthropic. They're also mission-driven, no doubt, but their corporate structure is much more conventional. They're a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), which means they can balance profit with social good, but they're still ultimately built to deliver returns to shareholders. They've raised massive amounts of capital from traditional venture capitalists and strategic investors like Google and Amazon. Their recent funding rounds have been huge. This is a company that looks, walks, and talks like a future IPO candidate. Their path to public markets, while still challenging, is far more straightforward and aligns with what existing capital markets are set up to handle.
The market closes on January 1, 2040. That's a ridiculously long time horizon. A lot can change. We could see entirely new regulatory frameworks, or even a different definition of what an 'IPO' means for these sorts of companies. But over such a long period, I believe the fundamental differences in corporate governance and investor expectations will only become more pronounced. OpenAI would need to undergo a pretty radical transformation to make a traditional IPO palatable, whereas Anthropic's current trajectory feels much more aligned with that goal.
So, where would I put my money? If I had to pick, I'd bet on Anthropic being the first to cross the IPO finish line. The 50/50 split feels like it underweights the structural headwinds OpenAI faces. Anthropic, with its more traditional, albeit still mission-aligned, corporate and funding structure, simply has fewer internal obstacles to clear on the road to a public offering. I think the market is overly focused on the 'who' (two big AI names) and less on the 'how' (their vastly different corporate mechanisms for going public).
My advice? Don't just look at the hype. Dig into the financials and, more importantly, the foundational corporate documents. That's where you'll find the real story, and in this market, I think it points to Anthropic.
