Finance1 min read

Analysis: Sam Bankman-Fried's $500M Anthropic investment in 2021 would be worth ~$37B if Anthropic lists at ~$1.5T; he relinquished his stake in 2024 for ~$1.3B (George Hammond/Financial Times)

By · Published by Everything Blog

In short

A financial analysis reveals that an early backing of the AI startup could have yielded extraordinary returns under an aggressive public listing scenario. The stake initially acquired for $500 million in 2021 would reach approximately $37 billion if the company ultimately achieves a $1.5 trillion valuation. However, the equity was surrendered in 2024 for roughly $1.3 billion, cutting off any exposure to that projected future upside.

Key points

  • Relinquishing the stake in 2024 prevented the realization of tens of billions in potentia…: Relinquishing the stake in 2024 prevented the realization of tens of billions in potential valuation gains.
  • The transaction locked in roughly $1.3 billion rather than capturing projected long-term…: The transaction locked in roughly $1.3 billion rather than capturing projected long-term artificial intelligence equity growth.
  • The massive hypothetical return underscores the sheer scale of Anthropic's projected publ…: The massive hypothetical return underscores the sheer scale of Anthropic's projected public market valuation scenarios.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Michael Acton / Financial Times: |

Wall Street Journal: |

CNBC: |

Reuters: |

Kierra Frazier / CBS News: |

Alex Fitzpatrick / Axios: |

Myles Miller / Bloomberg: |

Bruce Gil / Gizmodo: |

@microsoft: |

Ashley Capoot / CNBC: |

Bloomberg: |

Semafor: |

Eduardo Baptista / Reuters: |

Wen Shao / Fortune: |

Stephen Witt / New York Times: |

Allison Johnson / The Verge: |

Kara Carlson / Bloomberg: |

Dan Mangan / CNBC: |

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:25 PM ET, November 13, 2026.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

Dwarkesh Patel / Dwarkesh Podcast: |

Greg Bensinger / Reuters: |

Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal: |

New York Times: |

New York Times: |

CNBC: |

Myles Miller / Bloomberg: |

Finance