trading places

DeepSeek just raised $7.4B at a $50B valuation 🇨🇳and there's no cap table access. It's structured through an SPV, no voting rights, no board seats. CEO Liang Wenfeng put in $3B of his own money and controls the vehicle. Meanwhile Anthropic is trading above $1T on the secondary market despite Mythos getting staged by the government, and SpaceX just locked in its Nasdaq 100 slot with a $2T valuation...

SpaceX just finished its first week as a public company. Anthropic just had its newest model frozen by the US government. And Jeff Bezos just raised $12B for a startup that's been alive for about a year. Dave and Aman break it all down — from SpaceX IPO mechanics and gamma squeeze risk, to the Dario vs. Washington standoff that could derail the Anthropic IPO, to Bezos's $41B physical AI be...

The SpaceX IPO just happened. Dave and Aman break down the grades, the winners, and what comes next — then sit down with CJ Gustafson, recovering tech CFO and founder of Mostly Metrics, to dig into the private market pricing mechanics that most investors get completely wrong. This week: SpaceX Day 1 results and the $75B raise that dwarfed an entire year of VC-backed IPOs. The updated Private Mag S...

Aman read all 308 pages of the SpaceX S-1 so you don't have to. This week we break down every major number, surprise, and buried Easter egg in the filing — plus the biggest IPO week in recent memory across the AI holy trinity. SpaceX is pricing around June 12 and could open at a $2T+ valuation. We walk through all three business segments (Connectivity, Space, AI), the $28.5 trillion TAM claim,...

IPO season is here — and private markets are breaking at the seams. This week on Trading Places: Cerebras just had one of the best IPOs in years, pricing way above range and popping 68% on day one. SpaceX is targeting June 12th for its Nasdaq listing — and the prospectus drops next week. Anthropic raised $30B at a $900B valuation (up from ~$350B just three months ago) — and then told SPV operators...

Anthropic is now reportedly running at a $44B ARR pace, secondary markets are valuing it north of $1T, and demand is turning into full-scale FOMO. This week on Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down: 00:00 — cold open 00:39 — [ tech and vc news ] 01:53 — Markets ATH during Iran war 💥 06:45 — SpaceX + Anthropic $4B deal 🤝 10:51 — New NASDAQ rules benefit SpaceX 🔔 15:21 — Anthrop...

Anthropic is accelerating at a pace the tech world has never seen. In Episode 33 of Trading Places, Dave McClure, Aman Verjee, Marcelo Ballvé (Sacra), and Adam Crawley (Augment) break down the AI valuation frenzy, OpenAI’s growing pressure, hyperscaler spending, Cohere’s international AI strategy, and whether SpaceX’s trillion-dollar valuation has completely detached from fundamentals. Timestamps:...

Anthropic just crossed a $1 trillion valuation… and may have officially passed OpenAI. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is making moves—SpaceX is partnering with (and possibly acquiring) Cursor in a $60B deal, while OpenAI races to stay competitive with new releases like GPT-5.5 and Images 2.0. This week on Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down one of the wildest weeks in AI, venture capital...

Markets hit all-time highs in 11 trading days. Someone shorted oil 20 minutes before Trump spoke. SpaceX wants to raise $75B at a $2T valuation. And an autonomous naval defense startup just hit a $9.25B valuation — and almost no one's talking about it. Dave and Aman break down the biggest stories in venture and tech: the OpenAI executive exodus, why Stripe and Databricks still won't IPO, t...

Trading Places is the only VC secondary podcast on the internet. Each week, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down the biggest stories in venture capital, tech, and private markets — with the insider perspective most shows don't have access to. This week's guest is Oren Barzilai, founder and CEO of EquityBee — the platform that funds startup employees' stock option exercises via forwa...

SpaceX just filed its confidential IPO prospectus — and prediction markets say it will be June 3rd, Elon's birthday, during a rare 6-planet alignment. Anthropic is on a generational heater — Opus 4.6, Cowork, enterprise momentum — while OpenAI cuts Sora and kills the Disney deal trying to find focus. Prediction markets now say Anthropic IPOs first, 60/40 chance. In Episode 29 of Trading Places...

Dave and Aman break down a packed week in VC and tech — from macro headwinds threatening the IPO window to the big question of whether SpaceX and Tesla are quietly becoming one company. The Private Mag7 gets a full ranking debate: SpaceX is comfortably #1 at over a trillion, but Anduril's surprise $20B DoD contract has it punching into the top three. OpenAI just raised the biggest private roun...

Episode 27 of Trading Places asks a simple question: Are we pricing AI companies completely wrong? This week, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee are joined by Nick Fusco, founder of PM Insights, a private markets intelligence platform focused on tracking valuations, secondaries, and what assets are actually trading for beneath the surface. From Cerebras at $23B to Nvidia at $4.4T, the spread in valuatio...

Dave and Aman break down how the Iran conflict is rattling markets — and what oil futures backwardation is signaling about how long it lasts. Then: Anduril closes at a $60B valuation (a portfolio company for Dave and Aman — they got in at $14B), Palmer Luckey vs. Dario Amodei, Anthropic getting flagged as a supply chain risk by the Pentagon, Kraken connecting to the Fed, Robinhood's $RVI fund...

OpenAI just closed a historic $110B funding round — the largest private raise ever. At the same time: • Stripe surged to a $159B valuation • Anthropic is selling $6B of employee shares • The Pentagon reportedly blocked Anthropic from defense work • Sam Altman quickly picked up a DoD AI contract • ByteDance hit a $550B valuation • And Jack Dorsey laid off 4,000 employees citing AI productivity Welc...

The biggest private round in history just got bigger. This week on Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down: • OpenAI’s rumored $100B raise at an $830B valuation • Anthropic’s $380B valuation surge • Stripe’s $140B employee tender • Databricks at $134B • Harvey AI jumping to $11B • SCOTUS striking down Trump’s emergency tariffs Then we go deep with Tyson Hendricksen, Founder & C...

Space, AI, SaaS carnage, secondary liquidity, and the biggest merger of all time. Welcome to Episode 23 of Trading Places — and this one covers everything from venture DPI math to Mars colonization strategy. This week, Dave McClure, Aman Verjee, and returning guest David Zhou break down:🚀 The $1.25T SpaceX + xAI merger📉 Why SaaS multiples just collapsed💰 How VCs can generate DPI before year 10...

Welcome back to Trading Places — the terrible, very bad, absolutely horrible VC secondaries podcast with Dave McClure and Aman Verjee. This week is a full-spectrum market tour: the latest rumors swirling around Elon’s empire (SpaceX + Tesla + xAI), the mega-rounds and IPO chess games of Anthropic + OpenAI, the reality check hitting public SaaS multiples reported by Jamin Ball, and a deep dive into...

In this episode of Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down what’s driving markets right now, and what it means for liquidity in private tech. They’re joined by Ravi Ravulaparthi (CEO & Co-Founder, Qapita).Together, they unpack what’s actually happening across IPOs, secondaries, SPVs, and late-stage price discovery: • Why public markets rallied and what’s underwriting the optimi...

In this episode of Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee dive deep into the rapidly evolving world of private tech markets. They’re joined by: • Noel Moldvai (Founder & CEO, Augment Markets) • Adam Crawley (Co-Founder, Augment Markets) • Marcelo Ballvé (Founder, Sacra) Together, they unpack what’s actually happening beneath the surface of AI, secondaries, and late-stage private companie...

In this episode of Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down the reopening IPO market, sky-high AI valuations, and the growing push for private-market liquidity — before diving deep into Latin America’s venture ecosystem with Nathan Lustig (Magma Partners) and Karin Tenenboim (Practical VC). Karin explains why Latin America has quietly outperformed other emerging markets on $1B+ exit...

Episode 18 of the @TradingPlacesPod featuring James Riney from Coral Capital is out now! This week: Dave and Aman kick off 2026 with their macroeconomic predictions (GDP growth, Fed rate cuts, and tax refunds), break down the IPO market outlook (SpaceX at $1.6T?!, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks), and dive deep into the secondary market dynamics for companies that won't go public in 2026. Plus,...

Episode 17 of the Trading Places Pod featuring Javier Avalos of Caplight is out now! This week: the IRS as your hidden secondary buyer, why banks need private market solutions, how platform acquisitions are reshaping secondaries, and whether AI companies are in a bubble or just getting started. Plus, Oracle's cash flow crisis, TikTok's $38B deal, and why mega VC funds might be destroying r...

Episode 16 of the TradingPlacesPod featuring Adrien Gautier of Bridgespan VC is out now! This week: Oracle's debt crisis sends shockwaves through AI infrastructure stocks, the IPO market heats up for 2026 with SpaceX, OpenAI & Anthropic eyeing historic exits, and Adrien Gautier reveals how Bridgespan's unique employee stock option financing strategy gets them 30-70% discounts vs. prefe...

Episode 15 of the Trading Places Pod featuring Ben Black of Akkadian Ventures is out now! Welcome to Trading Places, the extremely terrible, very bad podcast on VC secondaries. Hosts Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down the biggest news in venture secondaries, late-stage funding rounds, and this week's exclusive interview with Ben Black, founder and Managing Partner of Akkadian Ventures and...