We are on a cusp of a whole new generation of billionaires—and potentially one trillionaire, in the case of Elon Musk. SpaceX is reportedly planning to go public with a valuation of over $1.8 trillion. Anthropic recently announced it had confidentially filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and OpenAI is allegedly planning to follow suit as soon as possible.
It’s enough to make the IPOs of yesteryear look quaint. Venture capitalist Keith Rabois famously made a bet that no company founded in the COVID era would exit above $10 billion. It’s not looking good for the investor.
I’m Margaux MacColl, a reporter based in DC, and I’m quick to remind people that these companies’ successes are in no small part because of their willingness to take on government contracts, especially as industry incumbents like Google once shied away from them. These days, nearly every major tech start-up is also a defense contractor. Increasingly, they’re dressing the part.
Read on for my deep dive into Silicon Valley’s newest fashion trend: military chic.
Mentioned in this issue: Palantir, David Sacks, Jason Calacanis, Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, Jake Paul, Ivanka Trump, Elad Gil, Brimble & Clark, Sim Khan, Diplo, Zoom, Oracle, Disney, NASA, Pierre Garçon, Derek Guy, Chris Power, Andrew Coté, Phoebe Gates, Bill Gates, Eric Schmidt, Mindy Kaling, and Sydney Sweeney…
