Anthropic's stock surge: founders reap millions as ai frenzy explodes
Jesse Leimgruber’s casual mention of potentially selling shares on X sent shockwaves through Silicon Valley, triggering a gold rush for Anthropic stock.
A torrent of offers – and uncomfortable attention
Within minutes of the post, Leimgruber was inundated with bids: cold, hard cash and lucrative partnership proposals from eager venture capital firms, all vying for a piece of what’s rapidly becoming one of the most talked-about AI companies. The sheer volume was, frankly, overwhelming.
Over the past few weeks, Silicon Valley has been gripped by an intense speculative fervor surrounding Anthropic’s shares, fueled by skyrocketing revenue growth and the undeniable success of its AI coding assistant, Claude Code. But the buzz wasn’t just about numbers; a recent Pentagon dispute added another layer of intrigue, igniting a fresh wave of investor interest.
“The demand is through the roof,” I heard Leimgruber say during a brief phone call – after I assured him I wasn’t a typical buyer. “Every single venture capital firm in Silicon Valley is fighting to get a piece of Anthropic.” The offers were audacious: some investors floated the possibility of delivering millions in cash within 48 hours, while others forwarded unsolicited screenshots of their bank accounts and letters detailing their substantial holdings. There were also numerous requests from ‘very well-known growth equity funds’ seeking to purchase his stake at valuations exceeding $1 trillion.
“People don’t usually do that without a confidentiality agreement,” Leimgruber observed, his tone laced with incredulity. “It’s completely insane.”
To manage the deluge of offers, Leimgruber implemented a CRM system. One particularly unusual proposal came from a major venture capital firm which offered to become a general partner in exchange for relinquishing his shares – an offer he swiftly declined. “They had no intention of making me a partner unless they got my shares,” he stated bluntly. “Some of these investors are just desperate.”
Securing Anthropic shares has become a herculean task. So extreme is the competition that a banker has offered his $4.8 million Marin County estate in the hopes of persuading key early employees to sell a small portion of their holdings. With Anthropic yet to go public, most investors are forced to purchase shares on the secondary market, where current employees or early investors are selling off their stakes. Driven by soaring stock prices, few are willing to part with their holdings, resulting in numerous transactions involving hefty commissions and incredibly complex ownership structures.
(Anthropic declined to comment for this article. Their website warns against unauthorized stock sales and scams).
The AI Race: Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon Pour $725 Billion into Investment
“The problem is there are no sellers,” states Glen Anderson, CEO of Rainmaker Securities, a private equity investment bank specializing in venture transactions. “There's a significant imbalance in the market.”
That disparity places those holding legitimate shares squarely in the spotlight. “We receive offers daily, ranging from the utterly ridiculous to the remarkably sophisticated,” says Bradley Horowitz, a general partner at Wisdom Ventures, one of Anthropic’s earliest investors. “People are trying all sorts of tactics.”
While Horowitz isn’t interested in selling, founder of OpenHome, a hardware-focused AI company, Leimgruber is actively considering retirement. He acquired his stake following the FTX collapse in 2024, when Anthropic was valued at $18 billion, and insists he’s not an investment expert. “I actually thought it was overvalued then,” he admitted. “Nobody could have predicted this.”
With a 5400% gain in just two years, he sees limited upside potential moving forward and isn’t keen on concentrating his investment in a single stock.