00:00 Speaker A

Now we also have some uncertainty about one of the biggest IPOs.

00:06 Speaker C

Could be the biggest.

00:06 Speaker A

When is, when is it coming? We’re talking about Anthropic. Um, Reuters reporting. So there have been some reporting that we could get an S1 from Anthropic as soon as today, as soon as this week. Um, and now Reuters is saying, well, now it’s probably not going to come at the earliest, could come late September. That would mean a listing sometime in October. And so we’re left to sort of read the tea leaves like what does this mean? What does it mean for the bigger AI trade. It feels like we don’t necessarily have enough information at this point to make a judgment, but at a time when like we’re already a little off balance, maybe it doesn’t feel great.

00:50 Speaker B

Is it a good time to IPO? I mean it’s it’s natural like these companies move their IPO, their debuts all the time, right? As they’re kind of evaluating the economy and like without really getting into it, it doesn’t seem like, I mean September in general, but certainly with all the things we’ve been speaking of, is it a great time to make your public debut when you want a 2 trillion value, you know, want to be the biggest IPO of all time?

01:13 Speaker C

Is it is it good to do it though right before the midterms?

01:15 Speaker B

Right. If you do it in October, you are literally right against the midterms.

01:19 Speaker C

closer to the midterms.

01:19 Speaker B

Right. and then it begs the question, does it happen this year? You know, at SpaceX sort of kicked off this unicorn IPO phase and then we’re Anthropic, Open AI. We’re all jazzed in Q2 about what was to come. and then when Anthropic didn’t come, Open AI won’t even talk about it, right?

01:38 Speaker C

Definitely not getting that this year.

01:39 Speaker B

No, no. Sam Altman has been pretty like mum about, you know, what the expectations are for IPOing, but and then with Anthropic not going through with this acquisition of Descartes. They don’t do a lot of huge acquisitions. But it they haven’t they haven’t commented on why, neither party has, but it I’d be curious to know, um, you know, why didn’t that acquisition go through? They went through due di diligence. Is it the the economy, they’re worried about some uncertainty. So there’s a few things going on there. But 2026 was the year of the return of the IPO and it has been a great first half. But it begs the question of what do all of these things we’ve been talking about mean for IPOs in the second half.

02:22 Speaker A

Yeah, it’s a great question. for IPOs in the second half and for the AI trade in the second half as well. I mean, I think there was sort of like some enthusiasm around the IPO and what it means for the AI trade, but also a little trepidation, both because we’re going to get more clarity on the financials of these companies. But also like, do you have sort of demand being siphond to those to those companies specifically. Um, so, you know, that was a little bit of a of a open question as to how which effect that was going to have. And then the other backdrop is, you know, especially as you get closer to the midterms, there is such anti-data center sentiment right now.

03:04 Speaker C

The public support has really just the bottom has dropped out.

03:08 Speaker B

Yeah, I mean there was always this concern is AI going to take my job. That was kind of it like last year. Am I going to have a job? And and now it’s turned very dark. The the support for data centers, the support for AI billionaires really isn’t there and as you say ahead of the midterms, it’s like is that a good time to IPO being the sort of the darling of the space? Like what is the public support for this going to be?

03:32 Speaker A

And there’s a lot of sort of naval gazing in that industry right now. Did we do a bad job with uh, you know, how we portrayed this. That’s right. Um I there was a piece over the weekend in the New York Times by a guy named Cal Newport, who’s a computer science professor at Georgetown. He wrote a book called Deep Work. and he had a really interesting piece about um the rationalists and sort of the roots of why you get this kind of messaging perhaps from people within the industry. But I thought the most important thing that he talked about is sort of not letting these guys off the hook. Right. Like there’s all this like, oh AGI is coming and it could do all of these sort of big, vague, horrible things. And he’s like there are very specific things that are happening that we need to be focused on that they can be responsible for. And he lists them. The potential use in cyber security attacks, excess resource consumption, impact on our cognitive fitness. Amen. Role in undermining education and amplification of soul deadening slop. All that stuff is happening today. That’s not like a big doomer problem. That’s a thing that’s that’s a problem now that they could be that we could be addressing.

04:54 Speaker C

look at education scores in this country. And the way they’re already falling. I thought uh Newport made a phenomenal comparison in that op-ed. His point was if if you’re like take a company like Ford. If Ford’s cars were catching fire on the highway every single day. And the CEO tried to go out and say, well, we’re not worrying enough about the future of like driverless cars and flying cars. We’d all say, no, no, no, no, no, you have a problem to address right now. Your cars are on fire. You have to fix the thing in front of you. You have to. And it’s also where the pushback has changed. It’s not about am I going to lose my job, it’s, am I going to have water? Is this going to destroy my power bill? Is this going to be, you know, kind of the movement.

05:27 Speaker A

Will I even know how to think in the future?

05:29 Speaker C

Right.

05:29 Speaker B

Well, well you just mentioned education. Um school gets started this week. My kids both go to New York City Public schools. We have banned AI in classroom in elementary school and you know, I was on one of the kind of in June, they have these public school hearings and kids were coming up and complaining about AI use in classrooms. They didn’t want it. They want

05:56 Speaker A

Isn’t that telling?

05:57 Speaker B

Yes. I mean they were middle school, high school age, but it was really compelling and you know, I also don’t want that in the classroom because like you said, we’re trying we’re my kids are in preK in second grade, we’re just learning to think. And so let’s not replace that any of the teaching with AI or screens or anything like that. So I think you’re going to see more states make, you know, decisions like that.

06:21 Speaker A

What what what persists for me though is there is just this incredible disconnect between the investment community and enterprises and then what you’re discussing. which I think is really interesting and I wonder how that is going to resolve itself.

06:40 Speaker B

How does it converge, right? Well, there are the investment community is making tons of money off of it, right?

06:45 Speaker C

That’s right.

06:45 Speaker B

Yeah.

06:46 Speaker A

We need to start listening to um the overall feelings about it which might not be so positive.