trading places

In this episode of Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee are back from Asia to break down the week's biggest stories in tech and venture. CPI came in at 3.7% with oil over $100, and prediction markets give Democrats 90% odds of taking the House. What does that mean for the Fed and for AI data center policy? Then they get into SpaceX's blowout Q3, with AI revenue tripling to $7.6B, a...

In this emergency Valuation Corner, Aman Verjee breaks down Anthropic's S-1, the filing that makes it the fastest-growing company at scale of all time. He starts with the 94 pages of risk factors, including models that have shown blackmail-like behavior and risks so large the company says the insurance industry may not have the capacity to cover them. Aman then walks through who made money: an...

In this emergency Valuation Corner, Aman Verjee breaks down SpaceX's Q3 earnings call. Revenue came in at $14.6B against a $12.8B estimate, SpaceX posted its first profitable quarter, and Elon Musk said annual recurring revenue could reach $500B to $1T by the end of 2027, two years ahead of the guidance he gave on the IPO roadshow. Aman walks through all three segments: space at $1.8B, Starlin...

$518B in compute commitments and 80 pages of risk factors These are just some of the surprising numbers from Anthropic’s leaked S1. In this episode of Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break it all down. Will their $2T IPO still happen before Thanksgiving? Plus, the 10-year Treasury broke 5% for the first time in nearly 20 years — what that means for the IPO market. They also cover the...

In this episode of Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down the week's biggest stories in tech and venture. First, the Fed's first rate hike under new chair Warsh and what >$90 oil could mean for the midterms. Then they get into Anthropic moving its IPO to November, OpenAI's potential $1.2 trillion pre-IPO round, and Aman's theory on the real reason AI giants are...

Dario Amodei says the industry needs to "pace the frontier." Sam Altman and Elon agreed. Dave and Aman aren't buying the official story. They break down why slowing down might be good for business, and why they would welcome government regulation. The macro backdrop compounds things. Oil's back over $100, the 10-year just touched 5% for the first time since 2023, and the national...

Anthropic had a massive week. The company is targeting $30 trillion in potential revenue, roughly the size of US GDP. A federal judge also struck down the Trump administration's attempt to label Anthropic a "supply chain risk,” a major hurdle cleared ahead of its IPO. The company also locked in a $45B compute deal with Enscale. Its AI infrastructure spending now tops $150B. Nvidia had a b...

This week on Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down Nvidia's expanding AI ecosystem, a billion-dollar stake plus exclusive licensing with Poolside, an investment in data supplier Mercor at $20B, and a bet on Perplexity as it raises at $30B. Plus: OpenAI's CFO signals a 2027 IPO, Chinese open-weight models overtake closed models in usage, the Cursor and OpenRouter deals off...

This week on Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down the Anthropic roadshow numbers and leaked internal forecasts, Nvidia securing a $500B financing coalition of six Wall Street giants, and the SpaceX $60B acquisition of Cursor. Plus: the Canva growth slowdown rattles its IPO case, Databricks becomes a top-5 private company at $190B, and Aman celebrates the NYC launch of his new bo...

Is Bending Spoons really worth nearly $30 billion? This week on Trading Places , Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down the Italian software roll-up after its $2.25B acquisition of Airtable — and ask whether buying challenged SaaS companies at 3–4x revenue can justify Bending Spoons trading around 10x revenue. Timestamps: 00:39 - [ tech and vc news ] 02:00 - historic Q2 earnings💲 05:18 - SpaceX...

Is Helsing becoming Europe’s answer to Anduril? In this episode of Trading Places, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down the German defense technology company’s new $18 billion valuation, its AI-powered autonomous systems, its battlefield testing in Ukraine, and the growing pressure on Europe to build its own defense capabilities. Aman compares Helsing’s software-first model with Anduril’s verti...

SpaceX just reported earnings for the first time since going public — and the numbers were a rollercoaster. Revenue beat estimates by a mile (+92% YoY), EBITDA came in strong, and every business segment posted growth. So why did the stock give up its gains and drop 8% after hours? In this special breakdown, Dave and Aman dig into: 0:27 SpaceX first earnings report 🚀 5:45 how SpaceX makes money 💸...

Dave McClure and Aman Verjee break down why venture capital is pouring into autonomous defense companies, how Anduril, Shield AI, Saronic and a new generation of startups are challenging the traditional defense primes, and why expanding military budgets outside the United States could create an enormous new market. They also discuss the growing threat Chinese open-weight AI models pose to OpenAI a...

The AI arms race just got a lot more interesting. Moonshot's Kimi K3 is topping leaderboards ahead of proprietary US models, DeepSeek is raising at a $71B valuation ahead of its own IPO, and Anthropic is quietly lining up bankers for a Q4 listing that could value the company at $2-3 trillion. Meanwhile SpaceX has broken its IPO price, Stripe just made a $53B run at PayPal, and European defense...

Welcome back to Trading Places, the weekly show covering the biggest stories in venture capital, private markets, AI, IPOs, and secondaries. This week, Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin make headlines with a $10B raise at a $130B valuation, igniting the next chapter in the battle with Elon Musk and SpaceX. We also break down OpenAI’s new multi-model strategy, the growing threat from open-weight AI models...

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...