Three of the most consequential IPOs in tech history are coming: SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Dick Costolo, ex-CEO of Twitter and managing partner at 01 Advisors, joins Alex Kantrowitz to break down who goes first, why order matters, and whether these companies can sustain public market valuations built on compute commitments and narrative momentum rather than traditional platform economics.
The conversation gets specific fast. Costolo draws on Twitter's IPO as a cautionary case study, then dissects how Elon Musk's SpaceX story differs structurally from OpenAI's compute-heavy balance sheet and Anthropic's positioning. The Codex versus Claude Code comparison at 17:51 is a rare moment of direct product analysis from someone with operator credibility. The section on where the AI IPO story could break, starting at 26:01, is the one to read twice.
The second half shifts to whether AI companies are real platforms or just expensive infrastructure plays, with Meta and Twitter used as comparison points. The closing segment on AI winners and what Costolo calls Silicon Valley's Permanent Underclass raises a structural question most coverage ignores. This is not a hype piece. It is a stress test of assumptions the entire industry is making right now.
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