The Weekly: Inside Anthropic’s IPO filing & why Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want your vote

0:01Coming up in today's episode, we speak about Anthropic. It is about to IPO as the biggest company in the entire world. You may think Deja Vu, and that's because SpaceX was very close to that, but now we have an even bigger company. So what does this mean? We think it's a good investment. It is in headlines absolutely everywhere, so we'll break down exactly what's going on.

0:23Vic: And we also talk about Meta. So Mark Zuckerberg has done something a bit icky, and we discuss, you know, do we like it, do we not, and how it could impact you. This is The Curve Weekly, where we read the finance news so that you don't have to. I'm Vic Harris, a finance professional who's made a career making money for other people. And I'm Sophie Hallwright, XTV and radio producer, who was sick and tired of not understanding the economy, how to invest or build my wealth, so we started this podcast. But before we dive into the headlines, here's a word from today's sponsor. Did you know Generate have a team of advisors who will actually meet with you and help you make sense of KiwiSaver, you can book a no-cost KiwiSaver advice session via the link in our podcast show notes.

1:07And thanks to Generate for sponsoring this episode of The Curve Weekly. Week one, back in New Zealand. How are you feeling, Vic? Have you settled in at all? Week one.

1:18Vic: This is week, like, three. Is it? Haven't we only done one podcast? Two. This is our third. I love that you think I've been gone from London for a week. It does feel like that, honestly. Okay. What's happening, Vic? How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I was in Sydney last week, which was nice. Oh, my God. The FinFest. How was it? Oh, my goodness. It was insane. Like, the amount of money they must have poured into. Like, it was, they had a ride on bull for a bull market. Like, people were riding on the bull. Oh, stop it. They had, like, a Warren Buffett corner. They had, like, five, six different stages.

1:56Vic: They had food trucks. I was frothing. It was honestly like Coachella for finance people. That's so funny. What stage are you going, oh, and who's speaking? Oh, I've got to get across to this one. And then they would like stop letting people in. They'd be like, no, no, this is too full. Like it was genuinely like a. Are you joking? Yeah. Yeah, it was great. So is investing cool now? Yes, it's always been cool. No, but seriously, Vic, this is really. It wasn't. Okay, give me the demo. Who was there? There was quite a few couples, actually. Lots of women, way more women than I thought, which was great uh yeah and it was it was kind of it was a saturday so it was kind of like people were going there as part of their weekend it was really really great shit that's cool that's actually really really cool it was so fun because you went on stage right and you you spoke with jess from get started investing yes yeah yeah so i did a segment on my journey which was it was it was so fun it was probably one of the best interviews I've done just so relaxed she was a great interviewer and then I went on their podcast yeah and had a few girls come up to me afterwards some curve fans which was fab yes yeah lots of oh my god lots of Aussie fans out there which is so great I was like oh my god shit yes oh my god I love that I actually had this girl walk past me down Broadway market and I feel really bad I've forgotten her name but she was listening to your money story as she went past oh my god I'm listening I was like this is so cool this is so amazing yeah it's funny being back in New Zealand people like oh and so sorry to hear about your uh your breakup you know like all these people that like I'm not I don't know but they obviously listen to the podcast oh god I will say though going back to Bondi after having left I was a bit shocked by how Instagram in real life it was.

3:53Vic: And I don't know if it was that bad while we were there. Maybe it was, and I was just sort of used to it, but it felt as though everyone was a model. And I knew at the time, I feel like I sort of fell from a seven and a half to a two and a half, moving from New Zealand to Sydney. But when I went there a couple of years ago, I don't know, I didn't feel cute. Nothing about it made me feel cute or good about myself. You definitely can see why, though, when they're like, it's so hot. So they're all active and walking and swimming and like, you know, very, very fit and healthy lifestyle in Bondi. Yeah.

4:34Sydney in general. Sydney in general. Yeah. So the big finance news of the week, we've got a, there's a big one. And I will say, I'm actually so proud, Vic. I have a economist with me. it may be buried at the bottom of my bag i may not have read it yet but there's two stories

4:52Vic: oh i've had a human not like an an economist like you've got oh yeah i've just shoved an economist in the bottom of my handbag and i was like oh no there's two stories i want to read but one of them that i haven't read yet and that i've seen absolutely everywhere is anthropics ipo yeah but i don't know what's going on everyone's having a hoo-ha and i would i would love for you to give me the breakdown as to like why it's making headlines absolutely everywhere because it's going to IPO and it is going to be the biggest IPO we have ever seen in this world in history ever ever ever ever so I said that a few months ago with SpaceX and that was 1.8 trillion and now it's expected that Anthropics IPO is going to be over 2 trillion when a company IPOs.

5:43Vic: It files what's called an S1. It's like it's IPO documents. And that's kind of what the alerts you run to. Oh my goodness, this company's going to IPO soon. So it's an actual filing. It's almost like you've got to submit your... It's like we're applying for the podcast awards. Hit submit. Yep. A bit more like scrutiny. But a bit more intense. Way more to submit. So this is a 300 page document of like, you know, the risks, the financials, the forecast like all these details and anyway I chucked it into Claude and I was like can you summarize this for me and it was like hey so uh Anthropic actually makes me say hey wait did it so you did yeah it's like so Anthropic makes me and I was like suddenly I was like makes what and I was so confused I was like oh

6:34Vic: and then I was like okay I'm gonna ask it like should I invest like just see what it says and then I'm going to chuck it into ChatGPT and be like, should I invest? Oh, this is such good research from you. And it was quite funny. I mean, Claude was very, you know, make sure you do your own research and I'm not a financial advisor. And actually, OpenAI was pretty similar, although OpenAI was a bit more negative on it in terms of like the risks. I mean, obviously, it's like you're asking its competitor if it should put money into it. Totally. I was like, it would be quite funny if it just went rogue and it was like, do not invest.

7:07imagine if they trained the models to be like it's going to tank it's gonna do terribly

7:13Vic: and then claude it's like invest it'll be great it's like it's achieved such fantastic growth it'd be quite funny whoa yeah but yeah right now in terms of markets like it's super volatile like the like we just had google's result out as well it was terrible result by the way the idea of Google having a bad result and coming out with, you know, this is coming from someone that hasn't read the report. So I don't actually know why Google did badly, but is this almost like all of the share prices that we've seen over, you know, the last year have been so, so high because of the expectation of what AI is going to do.

7:55It's already been priced in. So when people are delivering these results they're kind of like yeah not as outstanding as we were expecting so the share price is kind of coming back it's not climbing in this crazy amount like it was

8:08Vic: yeah and it's it's just a function of people are getting way less patient or accepting of companies there's a lot of fear around ai and there's a fear that it's got too ahead of itself in terms of your share prices expectations all of that so any anything that's like a tiny whisper of things slowing down or companies not hitting their expectations or they're spending you know more than people thought on ai or anything like that or delays or it's like the tiniest thing that wouldn't have historically moved share prices as much as it has today is really like people are kind of freaking out about it a bit more than which is why this is so surprising that Anthropic has filed its IPO documents now, in my opinion.

9:00Also, isn't it sort of like the Titanic heading for an iceberg a little bit, as in maybe it's just too late to turn the boat around? Because I imagine putting together, I mean, even thinking about how much we had to do for investors for the curve and where a tiny little speck of sand on a giant beach, you know comparatively to how enormous this business is the not not to shit all over ourselves but but my point is just like you're going public to the entire world like there would be so much work like months and months and months and hundreds of people and like no doubt millions

9:37Vic: of dollars spent on going live it's also like they file this filing they don't have to list you know they can file this and then they can pull it since september so just over a month we've had seven data center companies, which are effectively AI companies, pull their listings, their IPOs, and you've now got one of the biggest AI companies in the world, the biggest company in the world, about to list. I don't know, if it pulls it, that's a huge red flag. If it goes ahead and it doesn't do well, that's a red flag. No matter which way this is cut, it's, in my opinion, very telling of where we are right now in the kind of the AI race you would only IPO your company when it is doing the best that it can do you know like there's no way we would IPO the curve if we were you know expecting that there's going to be years and years and years and years and years of epic epic growth and we've still got you know like it's just this is why IPOs are so such an You just said we wouldn't be IPO-ing if we thought there was going to be years and years of massive growth.

10:48Vic: You IPO when things are doing like fucking well, you know, and the environment is fucking supportive. Sorry, excuse me. You want to put your best foot forward. Totally. And like I'm looking at these like revenue growth rates and I'm like, are they going to get 10 times better? Like if you want to double your money in this stock, is this the one to buy? You know, is this company going to go from$2 trillion to$4 trillion? I would way rather put my money in a smaller company that can do – do you know what I mean? Like I'm just like – Ah, yes. Like the context of how if you've got a dollar and you want it to double, what is the likelihood of that happening with this IPO versus another company that doesn't have all of this hype that's actually got the infrastructure and the revenue to back up how it's going to grow and how you're going to double that money?

11:35Vic: And I'm like, is this just as good as it gets for Anthropoc? can they see the writings on the wall? Their growth rates have been absolutely phenomenal, you know, and they're like, shit, let's IPO while things are really, really good. Oh, my God, yeah, because remember, they're getting money in the door. When they IPO, it's coming to them. As soon as they've sold their shares, it's, you know, all of us buying from each other. So you do not want to do that when you're – it's kind of like – I mean, we've talked about this a lot. There's quite a few companies. They've IPO'd at the perfect time. they've gotten all this money in which is great but then it sort of topples down the cliff that's the plan really you know it's like the perfect time to IPO is when your growth rates are the highest they will probably ever be and you might have one or two years afterwards but you know like you're reaching a peak I don't know I was trying to remove the name of this company when I was looking at it as well and be like would I invest in this business and I didn't know what company it was, you know, trying to like remove that hype.

12:35Vic: And I was looking at these growth rates going, holy, like there is just no way a company can continue to grow at that rate. When you say you have no idea how this could possibly do what it's already done, just for context. So in June of this year, so like the second quarter of the year, their revenue reached 11.6 billion, 11.6 billion, let that just like sink in for a second. If you then rewind to 2023, like the revenue for that entire year was$41 million. So like it went from an annual revenue of$41 million in 2023. To$12 billion in the quarter ending. That is absolutely insane growth. And the point here is Vic saying, if I go and invest, I don't know, a million dollars in this business, what do I think the chances are that it's going to go from those same growth rates of 41 million to 9.6 billion like that is insane and like yeah the idea would be to invest in 2023 totally yeah I mean imagine I mean it is a phenomenal business I've never personally seen a business that has grown at such a rapid rate and I mean we were talking before about how and like everybody is is using AI now and integrating it in their businesses and everything.

13:57Vic: And this just exactly shows that it's insane. Like that revenue growth is bigger than what MasterCard produces and PayPal. Like it's bigger than entire companies produce and they produce that in three months. Oh my God. I mean, sorry, but even a couple of months ago when I was like, but they're not even making money. Why didn't you slap me over the head and say they are absolutely making so much money? The context of that I don't think I realized. Well, this is revenue. So then you've got to factor in costs. True, because then they're spending an absolute truckload. Yeah, I think that's the thing.

14:40A lot of people perhaps don't realize the amount that they're spending basically to grow this fast. But also think about what's changed in the last 12 months. 12 months ago, if you asked me if I used AI at work, I'd probably say no. Like, I couldn't imagine not using AI right now. It's changed so fast. So if you think about the business growth they've seen, when you've seen the adoption within businesses and with individuals, they've seen that in their profit margins.

15:10Vic: Customers spend nine times more a year later. so in terms of their spend on on on cord like imagine your customers they're growing with you you know they're using your product nine times more than they would a year ago as well as you're bringing in new customers but your existing customers are spending nine times more than 12 months ago it's like just shows the the the the need and the i guess the additional services like you know you've got code design you've got code code you're like all of that so honestly it kind of makes me think they probably do have a long way to grow I don't think there's very many businesses that are using and this is not to sound like I know what I'm doing but we are using a lot of AI at the curve not for content creation for like operations and you know back end stuff at times I feel behind but I actually know in the context of how much other people are using we're quite ahead if you think about all the other businesses that are not at all on the bandwagon and this is businesses obviously the the enterprise spend would be more than you or I on like what do I make for dinner but if you think about that and you then almost think about like a Netflix example where it's easy to feel like they're absolutely swamped and they've got so much market share but then you actually look at how many millions of people don't use it yet there's so much growth to still be had?

16:37I don't know if I, yeah. There's also competitors, right?

16:41Vic: Like, you know, we jumped from, we were, you know, using ChatGPT a lot and then we jumped to Claude. You know, there might be something else that comes out, you know, next year that's even better or, you know, Meta's just announced Muse. It's AI agent. So it's like there's so much being spent from so many tech companies right now. You know, who's to say that Claude's going to be the one that's going to be? Very true, actually. because I will swap in a heartbeat. I have no loyalty, you know. I mean, like, honestly, if someone said, cool, you can swap to this, I'd be like, stunning. Off I go. But that's also why the more integrated it is, the harder it is to just swap out to another one, you know.

17:23That's true. Actually, if I think about the Curve platform that we've built on Claude, I have not got a clue how I've moved that. Yeah, Luke's probably like, um, no, you would not. You would not swap. like just so you know like i know for a fact what he has done i've got no loyalty i would just swap he's like um it's like sorry actually you definitely do just so you know the other night i was like i said to him something because like his business outsource they have quite a few clients now where they are building like amazing platforms like what they've done for the curve and he was like just so you know you have a platform that people would have spent like 700 grand to build and i was

18:01Vic: Yeah. Stunning. Thank you. Thank you so much. But there's a few other things from this IPO that I want to highlight because it is operating like a startup, not a$2 trillion business. And I just want to say that$2 trillion hasn't been confirmed. So it's kind of what people are throwing around. But this document hasn't confirmed the share price or the valuation that the company is going to IPO at. It's just got all the kind of the financials and stuff. So it's also holding$113 billion of cash, and that is more than any U.S. company holds in cash. So it's… How does it have that much money? Because it's producing it from revenue.

18:57Sorry. I know.

18:59Vic: I'm crazy. crazy crazy so the biggest business emergency fund perhaps we've ever talked about a hundred percent yeah 113 billion and it's more than nvidia and apple it's it's like it's like kind of like got tick tick tick in terms of so many things it's just gosh it's quite a hard one yeah in terms of do you invest do you not and obviously this is not advice please i mean retail investors can't actually invest can they so if you're in the uk and australia you can if you're new zealand sorry sorry we're not getting allocated any down here at the bottom of the world it might change but right now um yeah no they're probably like we have so much demand we don't need this little blip at the bottom what do you mean we have five million people i know but profit is the key thing here, right?

19:54Vic: Like, you know, profitability of businesses is a key metric you should always look at. And they actually are making profit. You know, there's a lot of, I mean, SpaceX wasn't, a lot of these kind of tech companies, when they first IPO, they weren't making profit. So Anthropic is not only growing at a rapid, rapid rate and reinvesting to continue to grow, it's actually able to spit off profit, which shows that it is kind of a much more viable business than a lot of other tech companies. And it produced its first profit in that June quarter that we were talking about. How much was it? About 600 million.

20:36So still small.

20:39Vic: But on paper, it looks like it is generating not a profit, but a loss of 80 billion. But it's got like accounting, like non-cash expenses, which I won't get into. But like if you do read that headline that it's not making a profit, it is actually making a profit operationally. It's just like there's a lot of accounting nuances, which on paper it doesn't look like it's making a profit. Could we talk about the founders? Because there's seven co-founders and they're all listed as selling, right? Yes, which is fair. I mean, they've been doing this for – I was going to say it's not that long. I'm like, hang on in there.

21:20Vic: They are selling, but how much they sell is still not confirmed. But they own about 10 % of the business. Combined, right? It's like 240 million shares each. Yes. So if it does come at a$2 trillion valuation, that is$200 billion that they own. For 10 %? Yeah. They're definitely not going to be selling 10 % though. 10 % is the combined of all seven. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that would be the biggest red flag in the entire world if they were all like, bye. They've also said whatever they do sell, 80 % of that is going to go to kind of philanthropic endeavors and all of that. And thank God, not really all of that.

22:07It's actually phenomenal. Thank God there is founders out there that are publicly doing something good with their money rather than just buying a yacht.

22:15Vic: Yes. Yeah. amazing amazing are any of the founders female i feel like one yeah daniella her and her brother started it they were that's right open ai yeah imagine so this is also i mean haven't even spoken about what this means for the um for open ai's ipo because they're supposed to ipo this year as well we haven't heard much about it but if you're coming in after this gutted yeah maybe that's why anthropics wanting to go now because you just don't want to be the sloppy second oh totally and your growth rates won't be as good and like the profit won't be as good and you're gonna have to you know come at a cheaper price and by that i mean like a a low valuation for the whole business to get people you know to to invest in yours not not anthropic and yeah i just think you don't want to be the second one and they they are and i don't know but also So if this does IPO and does terribly, then they'll be sitting there going, ha, ha, ha, ha.

23:19I mean, that's the thing, though. It's like you're damned if you do. You're damned if you don't. 100%. It's so weird to think that they have over$100 billion in cash and yet they're out there being like, we need money. That's just the weird part of the whole thing.

23:32Vic: it's also to um give staff and founders and private equity the opportunity to sell and get and release release capital get a return that kind of stuff so it's not necessarily that they need the money but do we know how much is going to those people no surely they would have to disclose that because isn't the whole point you're investing in growth but if you're just investing to pay out other investors that would be pretty no no they they will disclose it they just haven't yet oh so there's kind of like blank blank um pages in the in the in the document and they update it so it's like a draft and then they do because i feel like that's quite a major if they were basically raising how much are they raising again that hasn't been disclosed oh god talk about bloody drip feeding them i know i know it's happening in two weeks why are they not putting that out is that like a tactic no it's not it's normally you just do it all at once but they're probably just still figuring it out and it's like i don't know they can put this they can put these financials out get some hype you know it is at the end of the day this is a marketing document and you know you are trying to get as many people interested in buying your shares as possible i mean it's worth so hello i know every finance podcast is talking about it you just get Sydney Sweeney on a basketball hoop and everyone will be talking about it.

24:59Vic: Yeah. Just get her and Claude. I mean, surely they could revamp their marketing. A 300-page document. Think outside the box, guys. But yes, Daniella, she is the co-founder. She's also the chair of the board. Yeah, her and her brother started it. And she's the only woman out of those. There's seven co-founders. But do you know what? I would love to meet her. I would love to meet her. Do you know what? I think I'd get more nervous meeting someone like her than I would Dua Lipa. Who would be the icon in the finance world that you would want to meet? If you could have dinner with one person. Oh, God.

25:38Okay. This is actually a really good question. Let me think.

25:41Vic: I know mine. Can you tell me? Bill Gates. Oh, that's a good one. That's a really good one. Actually, Elon Musk. I would just, I would find him, he'd probably just gyrate me. No, what is it? Grate me. Like, do you know? Because he'd be so frustrating. But he'd just be such an interesting person to meet. Anyway, who's your person? Oh, because I can't think of one. Can you give me some ideas? What about Jensen Huang? I think he'd be so cute. NVIDIA CEO. He'd be really nice, I reckon. He's the dad. Everyone's the best. He's sort of like the dad of the business sort of tech world. um oh god can i get back to you on that i'm gonna actually i want i don't want to just come up with a stupid answer i'm gonna think about one and in the next episode i'll tell you who i want to have dinner with okay i'll read their columnist to come back to you cool well coming up after the break we are talking about meter so mark zuckerberg no one will be shocked by this but he is skirting around the rules or kind of just making new rules, it'd be great to be a billionaire.

26:50No, I don't want to be him. But what he's doing is just so... I'm glad we're talking about it, but it's a bit icky, isn't it?

26:58Vic: Yeah. But first, we've got a quick word from today's sponsor. Okay. So any KiwiSaver provider can have a good year, but how can you tell if they're a really good provider from the one that just got lucky. And honestly, that's consistency. A provider might be able to get a 20 % return one year, but that could actually just come down to one or two investments performing unusually well, rather than a consistent investing skill. So what you want to look out for is if a fund performs over a long period of time. See Generate's performance and disclosures by using the link in the show notes. And thanks Generate for making this episode of The Curve Weekly possible.

27:38Being good with money doesn't mean never spending it. It just means you've got to spend it on purpose. If, for example, a car like a Lexus is in your luxury one-day car list, just plan for it and then you can enjoy it guilt-free. Thanks so much to Lexus New Zealand for supporting this episode of The Curve Weekly. Mark Zuckerberg, what's he doing? He's up to no good.

27:59Vic: Mark Zuckerberg. Did you see the social network? No, not the social network, the social reckoning. Oh, is it the new one? Yeah. no and it's about based off that book uh careless people right yeah no i haven't seen it i've got a lot of good reviews and then i've heard bad reviews and i'm just so confused i should just go see it for myself but i had someone message us on um instagram basically saying do not see this film the reviews are as bad as you think because emma and i were talking about how maybe Facebook have paid for shit reviews. But anyway. One you should watch is the InstaDocs on Netflix.

28:39Vic: It's like a series and it's about prediction markets and there's one about AI. And it is, I know we've just finished talking about Anthropoc IPO, but there's one about AI and about how AI agents could take over the world. And it is so freaking scary. I'll definitely watch it. But what we're talking about is what Mark Zuckerberg has done. So he owns 13 % of Meta. But when you own shares in a business, the very vanilla way is that one share equals one vote. Vanilla. Well, you know, that's like everyone's just got like super complex now. Yeah, yeah. But that's how it's supposed to work. So he's meant to have 13 votes.

29:23Vic: 13 votes. so that you can vote in the board, you can vote for, if a company wants to take you over and you want to block it, you can vote on lots of business things. So obviously the more shares you have, the more votes you have. Whereas how he's set up Meta, he has 13 % of the shares, but he has over 60 % of the votes. So that even though he's got a small shareholding, he still has control because he's got a majority. But what Mark Zuckerberg has done is he has created a new class of shares. So in a class, it's just like you can have a class A, B, C, you can have whatever, and it's just there's different voting attached to different types of shares.

30:07So for example, when you first start, you'll have founding shares, and those will be what the founders have. And generally, unless you bring in like a co-founder that's considered equal, Even if they have a lot of shares, they don't have the same class or type.

30:23Vic: Yeah. Google's had it for ages. They've got class A and class B. And they've, you know, I don't know which, I can't remember which one, but one has like, you know, might be three votes per share. And then the other ones are one vote per share. And so the founders have the ones that have got three votes per share. So there's different structures. And Meta has decided to introduce a new class of shares. And so they're publicly traded shares. So you and I could buy and sell them. but there is no votes attached to them. So I could purchase 5 % of Meta shares with my billions and still have absolutely no say in how that business is run or have any votes or anything.

31:04Vic: Obviously, they'd be slightly cheaper than the ones that have votes attached to them because you're getting added value with the voting shares. But anyway, so what he's doing is that every existing shareholder in Meta gets one free class C share. So this new share class for each share they own. So it's kind of like a share split. Yeah. And then those will start trading in January, 2027. But the whole reason for this is so that he can raise money and not dilute himself. God, he, oh my God. Yeah. So everyone's like, oh my God, yay. I'm getting another, like a free share. Like this is great. I'm getting like a free meta share, but it's like no no no no it's doing it so that we can raise money in the future and not dilute myself as Mark Zuckerberg so I can still have my 61 percent of votes on this business because if we just raise money with the current share class then I'm going to get diluted and therefore my voting rights are going to be diluted as well so it is yeah it's an interesting but lots of companies have done it I mean Google did it it's so interesting to think about this because when we first started the curve, that was one of the main ways that you tried to get me to understand or get excited about investing.

32:21It's not like you own the business, you know, you get to vote on decisions, you get to make an impact. It's like, well, you kind of don't anymore. I'm really surprised that this didn't happen sooner. In all honesty, I don't know if it has anything to do with the idea that so many CEOs are kind of now celebrities and therefore they can, they're also the marketing you know we were just talking about nvidia's ceo and you know he's they've done such a clever job with his marketing and the way that they've positioned him people want to do deals with him like all the factories people want to work with him because he's so well liked publicly when you have that you have much more control to say well no i'm going to keep all my voting rights or you know you're not so much at the mercy of other people or because totally because the way that you are has such a huge impact on the business so you can pull rank and it's like when

33:13Vic: there's so much demand and interest in your business you can do whatever the if you want you know like if we were talking about getting investors the curve if we were like no no we want 90 of the votes and they were like okay well we don't want to invest you'd be like cool jog on i've got 10 10 other meetings right behind you that want to invest you know like it's kind of when you've got a lot of interest in your business you're doing really well you know and you've got a lot of investors that want to invest, you can kind of call the shots a bit because you're not kind of like, okay, whatever you want.

33:43On one side, you hear that he doesn't want to be diluted in his company. And you think, well, he obviously really believes in the future of the business because he's not trying to get money out. He's not trying to sell shares to be able to take money out of the business, which generally is, I mean, if it's a lot, can be quite a red flag. Like, but then when it comes to this, his intentions is purely around control, right? They want to get more money in the business and he wants to be able to sell shares. He just doesn't want to lose any control, which I, again, I do kind of understand. You know, he's, it would be like if we had a really great idea for something and we needed to raise another million.

34:25And by doing it, someone else could potentially tell us how to run the business. so we were like actually I'll take your money but it's this specific class c share because it means that you can't then come in and and tell me how to run my business yes you're so right and it's more

34:44Vic: if say we had a combined like 10 percent you know shareholding and voting and then there was a takeover for the curve and a company wanted to take us over and it was at a really shitty price and all the other shareholders were like, yeah, we want to take that price. You kind of have to go along with it. That's why retaining control is so important. And, I mean, he's got away with it. You know, it's a done deal. Is it a worrying thing? Like, how do you feel about this? Because on the one hand, I kind of understand why he's done it. And if I had spent my whole life being a little weasel and building up meta, I probably would want to continue having that power even if I was taking money to grow it why the fact that people give money and they just automatically assume that means they get to make decisions on the business is kind of insane if you think about it just because you have money what makes you think that you know how to run the business more yeah no I agree and I think I miss the days when it was simple one for one you know when companies were it was you issue shares to the public and each person has one voting right you know like it was it was so simple back in the day and then all of a sudden these tech companies have got all these crazy share structures and it is a bit icky because it's like no no no you're a public company which means the public owns you now that's the whole point of having shareholders you're not owned by private equity you know you are owned by the public and so to now buy a share in a business but not have any influence.

36:23Vic: And I know that I would only ever be a tiny, tiny sheldon and I probably wouldn't have influence anyway. You know, just a bit of the attractiveness is gone. Can I counter that by saying, I so hear you and I understand. I think there's probably a bit of nostalgia there that, you know, it used to be a certain way, but I never invested or decided to invest in the stock market because I felt like I had influence over those companies. There's no way I sit there and I look at the NASDAQ or the S &P 500 and think I have a 0.00000000005 ,000.1 % of that business. From my perspective, I would rather the founder run the business who knows it best and I just get to benefit by giving them money to grow.

37:08It's kind of like a little IOU and then you pay me back when the share price goes up.

37:14Vic: I'm so glad you said this. Why? Because you're right. You and me, we're never going to be able to have any impact on the meters of the world. But we invest our, you know, we have a pension. We have a KiwiSaver. All of that money is invested somewhere. And it's the pension providers. It's the big super funds. It's they are the ones that have the swinging power because they own huge chunks of these companies. and so they are our kind of collective influence, if that makes sense. So yes, you and I don't, but you've got institutions and you've got pension funds and that is how so much change is being brought about in terms of kind of ethical investing and conscious investing is that there's these walls of money that is essentially our money, but you've got institutions that are making those decisions on our behalf, billions and billions of dollars, and they're the ones that are pressuring and have been pressuring so many companies for so many years to reduce their carbon emissions.

38:19Wow, really?

38:20Vic: So it's like, yes, you and I won't, but we have collectively billions and billions invested through our pensions that is helping create a better world. I know that there are some amazing pension providers. There are some amazing fund management businesses that genuinely want to see positive change. in the world and it's it's it's amazing and you know we work with a lot of them we've also got the co-fund so like i'm definitely not lumping everyone into this but there are also funds companies or funds or people who have a lot of money that i don't necessarily like how do you know that they have the planet's best interest at heart or the business is best interest at heart or change in a positive way i mean this was the whole argument last year when trump pulled back all these kind of ESG initiatives.

39:14Vic: And he was like, it was a load of bollocks. He was just like, you know. And so therefore, when it's not mandatory and you don't have to invest like that, then they didn't. It comes from the top. It comes from governments being like, okay, if we have to reduce our carbon emissions by the end of next year, you know, you need to have this. Oh, that makes so much sense. Even though there are some funds that really do want to make activist change, It's actually a lot of the time it's almost a mandate that's set by government that means that change has to happen. Yeah, yeah. And it's a bit of both. That makes so much sense.

39:49Vic: It's pressure from the public and, you know, more people choosing to invest in ethical funds. There's that side of it. There's also universities. Like, they have so much money to invest. You know, they're investing with their certain lenses. So, yeah, it's not you and me that are going to move the needle with me, but it's like collectively we can. No, that makes so much sense. And I'm actually so glad that you explained that because I was weirdly for the first time in my life slightly on Zuckerberg's side and have changed my mind. But also there's a lot of, I know with SpaceX, there's a lot of funds that won't invest in it because of the shitty corporate governance.

40:30Ah, and that's what corporate governance, because when ESG is sort of the OG when it comes to kind of investing with a lens that is good for people, planet, animals, etc.

40:40Vic: Yeah, environment, social and governance. And the governance is the structure of how decisions are made within the business. This is a bit icky. And, you know, you'd probably, I don't know, it might still be okay governance for some funds. It might not be for others. SpaceX, definitely not. But going back to Anthropic, so they have a, this is like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, green flag, green flag. They've set up their business as a public benefit business. And so what that means is that a certain amount of their shares have to get allocated to initiatives that benefit the public. And so they've created this share class called Class T, T for Thomas.

41:18Vic: And it is. Sorry, just quickly. Did you think T was really hard to understand? did you think you needed to use phonetical the phonetical alphabet well we've had c t d tom thank you so much for clarifying so anthropic has five different share classes so i'm like oh guys just bring back the simplicity but class a is for you know you and i to buy buy shares and where they all have one vote so like really nice love it tick tick tick but then there's a different class where the founders get more voting, but then there's also this class T. So class T shareholders will choose the most of the board. And this is so that ordinary investors don't control the board.

42:05Vic: And it's like an independent trust that does. So the whole point of that trust is to make sure that the company focuses on the mission rather than profit. So the mission of AI being good for humanity, like their whole mission. So they've got people that control the board that have the overarching mission of anthropic rather than profit, which is quite incredible. I mean, I don't know if it's all just a PR stunt, to be honest. When the money goes past a million, I don't trust anyone. I know. Yeah. Billions, trillions, what the hell is going on? I mean, hats off to them. Like I said, this is a marketing document.

42:43Vic: is trying to get people interested and people are scared of AI. So, hey, let's throw in a different share class structure and people on the board that aren't profit-driven and that will tick a few boxes. Yeah. It is. It's so hard to not get cynical the more that you learn, isn't it? I know. The more you learn about business and money and the stock market and the economy in general. Yeah. It's just a big bloody game to everyone. And it's sometimes kind of disheartening. And sitting here talking about a$2 trillion IPO when companies that have been around for decades aren't even worth$2 trillion yet makes me feel like there is so much hysteria and there is so many stupid, stupid people out there.

43:33Vic: and me possibly one of them that is you know drinking the kool-aid right now and thinking that a two trillion dollar company is is appropriate in this world I'm just like the amount of money sloshing around in the world today it makes me feel really icky are you considering this for the curve fund like where have you landed with it you got you got about 15 days to decide yeah so I will have a look at what the valuation comes out it because we haven't got that share price or the amount of shares or anything. So there's still a lot of detail that I would need to be able to invest in this, but it's probably going to be a bit tricky.

44:12Vic: And you know what? SpaceX fell below its IPO price shortly after it listed. You know, the historic run of IPOs has not been good. You can kind of read between the lines on that one. Hey Vic, thank you for this Curve Weekly slash AI Weekly. really enjoyed it. I'm like honesty feel as though this could be, it was the Trump weekly for a year. This could be the AI weekly for the next five years. Who knows what's going to happen. But I really enjoyed the angles and the way that you explained what's going on. Thanks, Sov. On Friday, we actually have a very appropriate episode. It's the next installment of IOU with Maddie Stephanas and we actually do talk about how she uses AI to make or help her make financial decisions, understand finances and investing.

45:04Obviously, you need to use your own brain and actually speak to professionals. But it was a really cool conversation about how you can actually think about using AI to soundboard for financial decisions. And that is coming out on Friday. So enjoy. Have a great week, everyone. See you. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Curve. Feel free to leave a comment to let us know what you thought. We always love hearing your feedback. New episodes are out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So make sure you're subscribed to be notified whenever a new episode drops. In the meantime, we're around

45:38Vic: on social so you can find all the links in the show notes. Hope you have a great week and we will see you for the next episode. Okay, quickly, The Curve was created to empower and educate you about investing, but we are not financial advisors. Our platform exists for educational purposes only and it doesn't provide personalized investing advice for your individual needs and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. And always remember to do your own research before making any investment or financial decision. We're here for any knowledge and support you need, but the final call is always yours.

46:08And thanks for being here. You got this. Yeah, we know you got this.