By Maksym Misichenko · Yahoo Finance ·
What AI agents think about this news
The panelists generally agree that there's strong investor appetite for AI IPOs like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, but they caution about potential risks such as regulatory headwinds, valuation compression, and the lack of public comparables for valuation anchoring.
Risk: Valuation compression once secondary supply hits and the lack of public comparables for valuation anchoring.
Opportunity: Strong investor appetite for AI IPOs
This analysis is generated by the StockScreener pipeline — four leading LLMs (Claude, GPT, Gemini, Grok) receive identical prompts with built-in anti-hallucination guards. Read methodology →
David Solomon is the CEO of one of the world's largest and most powerful financial institutions, Goldman Sachs(NYSE:GS). A key part of the company's business is investment banking. When asked about the market's ability to absorb a string of large initial public offerings (IPOs), including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, Solomon was very upbeat.
Essentially, he believes that "greed" is running high today. But there was a hidden warning in his comments, as well, for anyone who remembers the dot-com bubble.
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$10 billion in Alphabet stock shows that investors are greedy
Over time, Wall Street tends to swing between periods of fear and greed. Companies look to take advantage of times when investors are greedy, often by existing public companies issuing stock or conducting initial public offerings. Giving a read on the current environment, David Solomon, in a conversation with CNBC’s Leslie Picker, highlighted Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOG) stock performance after it announced plans to sell $80 billion worth of new stock to help fund the company's artificial intelligence ambitions.
To be sure, Alphabet shares fell after the news, which is normal in such situations, but it didn't crash. That was a distinct possibility given the size of the equity sale. Goldman Sachs' Solomon believes that this is a sign that the investor appetite for IPOs is strong, which is good news since big names like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are all planning large IPOs. Solomon told CNBC, "When capital’s available, if you’re capital consumptive and it’s available, take the capital."
In other words, greed is high today. Companies that need capital should act, or they could miss the window of opportunity. And Goldman Sachs is happy to help. But that brings up another comment from the investment bank's CEO about greed, which he noted can "turn into fear very quickly, but that doesn’t mean it will."
Don't forget history if you are a long-term investor
That's true over the short term, since history shows that greed can push stock prices far higher than anyone imagines. But over the long term, history is very clear. Greed will eventually give way to fear, and when it does, there could be a lot of pain to go around. The last big period for IPOs, all clustered around a new technology, was the dot-com bubble. The chart above highlights what happened when that bubble burst, and fear gripped the markets. It wasn’t pretty.
A big driver of that fear was the uptick in IPOs of companies of increasingly lower quality. At the turn of the century, the IPOs were mostly internet stocks; today, they are artificial intelligence stocks. And the problem could again boil down to too many companies trying to take advantage of the greed on Wall Street today. At some point, that greed will be exhausted, and the broader markets, which are all trading near all-time highs as they were before the dot-com bubble popped, could suddenly find that fear starts driving share prices lower.
Don't feel like you have to rush into AI
As an investment bank, Goldman Sachs has a horse in this race, so the company's CEO being positive about the IPO market isn't shocking. His company stands to generate material investment banking fees from an IPO boom. And, at this point, Solomon's view seems reasonable, since the companies holding IPOs are considered industry leaders.
However, you should try to keep your greed in check, because eventually the market's greed will turn into fear. And at this point, it is still far from clear which companies will be the long-term winners in AI. In fact, those who bought tech stocks after the dot-com bubble burst likely made out much better than those who bought into the IPO boom at the time. It wouldn't be surprising if history repeated itself this time around.
In other words, you shouldn’t feel like you’ll be missing out if you don’t buy into the IPO excitement around SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. You may get a second chance, and possibly better prices, after the greed driving this IPO boom wears off.
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Four leading AI models discuss this article
"A sustained AI IPO wave will only be viable if the leading AI players translate hype into durable earnings and governance; otherwise greed will fade and the IPO cycle will disappoint."
David Solomon’s upbeat read hinges on 'greed' proving enough buyer demand to absorb SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic-sized IPOs, with Alphabet’s $80B stock sale cited as evidence of appetite. The piece treats greed as a forward indicator of liquidity, but misses the conditionality: a handful of AI winners must demonstrate durable profitability and governance, not mere hype, for these deals to stay bid. It glosses over execution risk, potential dilution, and regulatory headwinds in AI. It also uses dot-com-era analogies; today’s macro regime (rates, liquidity, tech-equity crowding) matters just as much. SpaceX’s public debut would be a governance shift and a structural test for the IPO model.
Against that bullish read, the real risk is that a flood of AI IPOs could overwhelm demand, causing price discipline to evaporate and later re-ratings as profits disappoint. Alphabet raising $80B for AI is not a green light for a broad IPO window; it may reflect a selective liquidity play, not durable IPO demand.
"The impending IPO wave of AI titans will likely trigger a liquidity rotation that suppresses valuations for the broader mid-cap tech sector."
Solomon’s commentary on 'greed' is a classic investment banker's signal: he is effectively signaling that the window for high-margin underwriting is open. While the article draws parallels to the dot-com era, it ignores the fundamental quality difference in these specific assets. SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic are not speculative 'eyeball' plays; they are infrastructure-level entities with massive, verified enterprise demand. The risk isn't that these companies lack substance, but that the liquidity required to absorb them will crowd out the rest of the market. If these IPOs launch at massive valuations, they will effectively act as a vacuum, sucking capital away from mid-cap growth stocks and compressing their multiples.
The 'greed' Solomon describes might actually be a rational response to a new industrial revolution where the cost of missing out on foundational AI models far exceeds the risk of overpaying for an IPO.
"Solomon's bullishness on IPO absorption is accurate on liquidity but silent on whether these companies will trade at multiples that justify their pre-IPO valuations once public-market scrutiny kicks in."
Solomon's optimism is self-serving—Goldman stands to pocket $100M+ in fees from these IPOs, so his 'greed' commentary is a sales pitch dressed as market analysis. More concerning: the article conflates *market capacity* with *valuation discipline*. Yes, Alphabet absorbed an $80B raise without crashing (GOOG down ~2%), but that's liquidity, not a signal that SpaceX, OpenAI, or Anthropic will trade rationally post-IPO. The dot-com parallel is apt but incomplete—those IPOs were mostly unprofitable; today's three are capital-consumptive but revenue-generating. The real risk isn't the IPOs themselves; it's that a 2025 correction (rates, geopolitics, earnings misses) could crater AI sentiment and leave late-stage private valuations stranded.
If SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic IPO at $100B+ valuations and deliver 30%+ annual growth for 3+ years, Solomon's 'greed' thesis looks prescient, not reckless—and the dot-com comparison becomes a lazy false equivalence.
"A wave of large AI-related IPOs will likely exhaust marginal buyer demand and pressure multiples across high-growth tech within 12-18 months."
Solomon's comments correctly flag strong investor appetite, evidenced by Alphabet absorbing an $80B equity raise without collapse, which supports near-term IPO windows for SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Goldman stands to capture substantial fees, aligning its incentives with continued deal flow. Yet the piece underplays how today's AI leaders differ from 1999-era dot-com names in revenue scale and path to profitability. The real risk lies in valuation compression once secondary supply hits, not immediate rejection of the IPOs themselves.
These companies already trade at massive private valuations with limited public float, so IPOs may simply crystallize gains rather than trigger a broad selloff, especially if earnings growth remains above 30%.
"Regulatory and governance headwinds post-IPO could reset AI valuations faster than liquidity, so greed alone won’t sustain demand."
Claude, your take on liquidity being the sole driver risks missing a material gating factor: regulatory and governance risk post-IPO. Even with strong revenue, AI incumbents face export controls, antitrust scrutiny, and platform dependencies that could compress margins and cap addressable markets. A rate spike or earnings miss would magnify these headwinds and could reset AI valuations faster than the dot-com patch; greed alone won’t sustain demand if profits don’t materialize.
"Mandatory inclusion in major indices will artificially inflate AI IPO valuations regardless of fundamental business risks."
Claude, you’re right that Goldman’s incentives are self-serving, but you’re ignoring the 'passive index' trap. If these AI giants IPO at $100B+ valuations, they instantly become mandatory holdings for S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 index funds. This forces a massive, non-discretionary inflow of capital regardless of fundamental valuation or regulatory risk. The real danger isn't just 'greed'—it's the algorithmic 'must-own' status that creates a liquidity bubble, decoupling these stocks from their actual earnings performance.
"Index inclusion risk is real but secondary to the absence of public valuation anchors and the fragility of sentiment-driven IPO windows."
Gemini's index-forced-buying thesis is real but overstated. S&P 500 reconstitution happens gradually; passive flows don't hit day-one. More pressing: nobody's addressed that SpaceX, OpenAI, Anthropic lack public comps for valuation anchoring. Alphabet's $80B raise proves equity appetite exists, but these three are 10-50x more speculative. If one IPOs and reprices 40% lower within 12 months, it poisons the entire window—not because of fundamentals, but because it breaks the 'greed' narrative.
"Passive flows would delay but magnify the damage from any single AI IPO repricing."
Claude, Gemini's passive-index inflows and your repricing scenario interact in a way neither of you flags: forced buying by S&P and Nasdaq funds would slow any 40% drop, allowing active managers to exit gradually while retail chases the dip. This extends the period of inflated valuations and raises the chance that one weak debut contaminates the entire AI cohort for quarters, not months, before fundamentals can re-anchor prices.
The panelists generally agree that there's strong investor appetite for AI IPOs like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, but they caution about potential risks such as regulatory headwinds, valuation compression, and the lack of public comparables for valuation anchoring.
Strong investor appetite for AI IPOs
Valuation compression once secondary supply hits and the lack of public comparables for valuation anchoring.