A lot of people in San Francisco are about to get very rich very fast. And the city has no idea what to do about it.
Anthropic and OpenAI are two of the hottest names in artificial intelligence. Both are getting ready to sell shares to the public for the first time in initial public offerings, or IPOs. The initial public offering will let employees sell shares they've held but couldn't trade, unlocking enormous value. For thousands of workers, that paper wealth will turn into actual cash.
Anthropic's value went from $18 billion two years ago to as much as $965 billion now. One example employee received a $1.3 million equity grant in 2024. That same stake is now worth $72 million, a gain of roughly 5,000%.
Anthropic's seven co-founders each have an estimated net worth of $15 billion. OpenAI's president, Greg Brockman, holds about $30 billion in equity. The company's roughly 5,000 employees got an average grant of $1.5 million.
Tushar Kumar, a financial planner who works with clients at both companies, put it plainly: "The level of wealth I'm seeing with these two companies is like nothing I've seen in my career."
A former OpenAI worker, after fewer than three years there, holds stock valued at over $50 million. He told us, "I have a hard time comprehending this scale of wealth," which he described as "way beyond what I even know what to do with."
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Unlike previous tech booms that spread wealth across many companies and neighborhoods, this AI‑driven surge is largely confined to employees of just two firms. The concentration could lead to hyper‑localized price increases and a more pronounced divide between the newly wealthy and everyone else.
San Francisco has seen tech booms before. But this one feels different. However, this boom stands out because the wealth is far greater and concentrated among a smaller group. During earlier IPO waves, Kumar noted, "everyone was making money." "The thing that feels different this time is not everyone's making money."
Vijay Chattha, who owns a tech PR firm, called it "a time of great anxiety" for some and the "best of times" for others. "I've never seen something like this in my life, where something has such a dual energy to it," he said.
Many employees are frugal millionaires. Financial planner Alex Caswell observed that his clients working at Anthropic and OpenAI feel "shocked by what they now have available to them."
For investors watching from outside San Francisco, this story is about more than one city. The IPOs of Anthropic and OpenAI could be among the biggest stock market events in years.
When employees cash out, a lot of that money will move. Some will go into housing. Stoyan Panayotov, a financial planner with OpenAI clients, says many engineers are buying their first homes. "We're talking about a very young cohort of engineers, so a lot of them are buying their first home," he said.
Others are putting cash into startups instead of charity. Caswell noted that most of his clients are not factoring philanthropy into their plans. "That's what I'm seeing more than the desire to become philanthropic," he said.
Real estate is the primary destination for these funds.
The bottom line: If these IPOs succeed, the wealth will spread. If they stumble, a lot of paper fortunes could shrink fast. San Francisco is ground zero, but the rest of the market should pay attention to what happens next.
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