As AI companies race to go public, who else is along for the ride?
As AI companies race to go public, who else is along for the ride?
随着人工智能公司竞相上市，还有谁在搭顺风车？
SpaceX went public this week in the largest IPO ever, making CEO Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire. Despite its name, SpaceX has been emphasizing the potential of its costly AI business, and competitors OpenAI and Anthropic may soon follow with their own public market debuts. So on the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed what’s looking like a hot IPO summer. 本周，SpaceX 完成了史上规模最大的首次公开募股（IPO），使其首席执行官埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）成为全球首位万亿富翁。尽管名字叫 SpaceX，但该公司一直在强调其高成本人工智能业务的潜力。其竞争对手 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 也可能很快跟进，开启各自的上市之路。因此，在最新一期的 TechCrunch《Equity》播客中，Kirsten Korosec、Sean O’Kane 和我讨论了这个看起来将非常火热的 IPO 之夏。
“We have SpaceX not only sucking up just a huge chunk of the money that’s available on public markets, but also really stress testing the limits of what a public company can be and how much it can be controlled by one single person,” Sean said. “My eye is really on these other tech companies that will go public and how much they will try to emulate.” “SpaceX 不仅吸走了公开市场上可供利用的大量资金，还在真正地压力测试一家上市公司所能达到的极限，以及它能被一个人控制到什么程度，” Sean 说道。“我真正关注的是其他即将上市的科技公司，以及它们会尝试在多大程度上效仿这种模式。”
Kirsten also noted that there are other startups trying to “ride that SpaceX IPO wave,” for example by raising money for orbital data centers after SpaceX helped to popularize the concept. “So there’s a ripple effect that’s happening throughout the market that I think is probably even more interesting than just the headline, ‘SpaceX makes Elon a trillionaire,’” she said. Kirsten 还指出，还有其他初创公司正试图“搭上 SpaceX IPO 的顺风车”，例如在 SpaceX 普及了轨道数据中心这一概念后，这些公司开始为此筹集资金。“因此，整个市场正在产生一种连锁反应，我认为这可能比‘SpaceX 让埃隆成为万亿富翁’这个头条新闻更有趣，”她说。
Anthony Ha: I want to zoom out a little bit from just the SpaceX IPO, because beyond the Elon Musk of it all, it’s the beginning of what could be a [series] of different IPOs for different AI companies. We’ve talked about Anthropic confidentially filing to go public, and now OpenAI has done the same. How excited are either of you about this? Anthony Ha： 我想把视角从 SpaceX 的 IPO 中稍微拉远一点，因为除了埃隆·马斯克这个因素之外，这可能是一系列不同人工智能公司 IPO 的开端。我们已经讨论过 Anthropic 秘密提交了上市申请，现在 OpenAI 也做了同样的事情。你们对此感到兴奋吗？
Kirsten Korosec: I want to start off by saying that I love Julie Bort’s story, which I think sums it up pretty nicely. It’s a great headline, so I’m gonna read it here: “It’s not FAANG anymore, it’s MANGOS.” FAANG being Facebook, which is now Meta; Amazon; Apple; Netflix; Google, now Alphabet. Now it’s shifted, and we’ve got Meta, Anthropic, NVIDIA, Google, OpenAI, SpaceX. [We’ve still got] massive tech companies, surely, but there is a shift here, right? Kirsten Korosec： 我想先说，我很喜欢 Julie Bort 的报道，我认为它总结得非常好。标题很棒，所以我在这里读一下：“不再是 FAANG 了，现在是 MANGOS。” FAANG 指的是 Facebook（现为 Meta）、亚马逊、苹果、Netflix 和谷歌（现为 Alphabet）。现在情况变了，我们有了 Meta、Anthropic、英伟达、谷歌、OpenAI 和 SpaceX。当然，我们依然拥有大型科技公司，但这里确实发生了转变，对吧？
First of all, we’ve got a bunch of AI labs in there, and that’s very different. Netflix gets booted out of there, a giant streaming service. And so to me, it’s an interesting shift in terms of public markets and the vast amount of money and capital available in the public markets shifting away from consumer [and] social networks and towards, specifically, AI labs and other, more innovative deeptech, such as SpaceX. So I think that’s the most interesting thing — aside from the fact that this summer is going to keep us all very busy as reporters, more than probably any other summer in a while. 首先，这里面包含了一堆人工智能实验室，这非常不同。Netflix 这样的大型流媒体服务被踢出局了。对我来说，这是公开市场的一个有趣转变，公开市场中可利用的大量资金和资本正从消费类和社交网络转向人工智能实验室以及其他更具创新性的深科技领域，例如 SpaceX。所以我认为这是最有趣的事情——除了这个夏天作为记者会让我们所有人都非常忙碌之外，这可能是近几年来最忙的一个夏天。
Sean O’Kane: You know, once upon a time I wanted to be a lawyer, and one of the reasons I didn’t was because I hated the paperwork that was going to be involved. And here I am looking forward to reading hundreds more pages of SEC filings this summer — talk about a beach read. It’s a moment we’ve been anticipating for a while. We’ve spent the last few years really wondering if the IPO market was going to quote-unquote “open back up” after a lot of consternation about private markets, and mockery about people reaching their like Series [whatever] fundraising round. Sean O’Kane： 你知道，曾经有段时间我想成为一名律师，我不去做的原因之一就是我讨厌那些繁琐的文书工作。而现在，我却期待着在这个夏天阅读数百页的 SEC（美国证券交易委员会）备案文件——这简直是绝佳的“海滩读物”。这是我们期待已久的时刻。过去几年，在经历了对私募市场的诸多担忧，以及对人们达到各种轮次融资的嘲讽之后，我们一直在思考 IPO 市场是否会“重新开放”。
This is a good stress test — I mean, “good,” take that word however you want — a good stress test of public markets in general. We have SpaceX not only sucking up just a huge chunk of the money that’s available on public markets, but also really stress testing the limits of what a public company can be and how much it can be controlled by one single person. My eye is really on these other tech companies that will go public and how much they will try to emulate. A thing that I keep saying and thinking about with SpaceX is, they’re really trying to take some of the most extreme aspects of Google and Meta’s original IPOs back in the early 2000s and mashing it up with that “We’ll lose money forever” with Amazon. And I’m curious how much Anthropic and OpenAI will try to do the same. Will they remake themselves in the image of SpaceX? Or will they try to put themselves in a different light? 这是一个很好的压力测试——我是说“好”，你可以随你怎么理解这个词——这是对整个公开市场的一次很好的压力测试。SpaceX 不仅吸走了公开市场上可利用的大量资金，还在真正地压力测试一家上市公司所能达到的极限，以及它能被一个人控制到什么程度。我真正关注的是其他即将上市的科技公司，以及它们会尝试在多大程度上效仿这种模式。关于 SpaceX，我一直在说和思考的一点是，他们确实试图汲取 21 世纪初谷歌和 Meta 原始 IPO 中最极端的一些方面，并将其与亚马逊那种“我们将永远亏损”的模式结合起来。我很好奇 Anthropic 和 OpenAI 会在多大程度上尝试这样做。他们会按照 SpaceX 的形象重塑自己吗？还是会尝试以不同的面貌示人？
Anthony: One aspect that really got driven home as I was reading about the OpenAI IPO is also the extent to which some of this is also a bit of a race in terms of timing. I think we can confidently say at this point, SpaceX is first out the gate, which probably has some advantages and disadvantages. It’s also a bit of a different company because it’s billing itself as an AI company, but obviously has a bunch of other stuff going on, too. But there is a sense in which, at least according to some analysts, OpenAI and Anthropic may both want to go before the other one, because there’s only a finite amount of capital, a finite amount of interest. At some point some of these valuations have to start coming back down to Earth, and so they may both be scrambling to be first. Anthony： 在阅读关于 OpenAI IPO 的报道时，我深刻体会到的一点是，这在某种程度上也是一场关于时机的竞赛。我认为我们可以自信地说，目前 SpaceX 是第一家冲出起跑线的，这可能有一些优势，也有一些劣势。它也是一家有点不同的公司，因为它自称为人工智能公司，但显然还有很多其他业务在进行。但至少根据一些分析师的说法，OpenAI 和 Anthropic 可能都想抢在对方之前上市，因为资本是有限的，市场兴趣也是有限的。在某个时刻，其中一些估值必须开始回归现实，所以他们可能都在争先恐后地抢占先机。
Kirsten: I mean, there’s very much a race between Anthropic and OpenAI. You’re even seeing OpenAI talk about slashing prices, and they’re certainly going to be competing on the IPO calendar. But that is very short-term thinking. If they’re smart, they should be much more concerned about the long-term play here. To me, what’s really interesting is while Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX all prepare for these moments, there are a host of other companies out there that are raising money on the backs of the success of companies like SpaceX, or going into SPACs. Just today, for instance, or as we’re recording this, a company called Quantum Space is doing a SPAC and absolutely trying to ride that SpaceX IPO wave. We’ve got a host of other startups that our reporter Tim Ferholz has reported on that are clearly — they’re not going to go public, right? But if SpaceX is successful with space data centers, they’re raising money off of that potential and they’re building businesses on that potential. So there’s a ripple effect that’s happening throughout the market that I thi… Kirsten： 我的意思是，Anthropic 和 OpenAI 之间确实存在竞争。你甚至可以看到 OpenAI 在谈论降价，他们肯定会在 IPO 时间表上展开竞争。但这是一种非常短视的想法。如果他们聪明的话，他们应该更多地关注长期的布局。对我来说，真正有趣的是，当 Anthropic、OpenAI 和 SpaceX 都在为这些时刻做准备时，还有许多其他公司正借着像 SpaceX 这样的公司的成功势头筹集资金，或者通过 SPAC（特殊目的收购公司）上市。例如就在今天，或者在我们录制这期节目时，一家名为 Quantum Space 的公司正在进行 SPAC，绝对是想搭上 SpaceX IPO 的顺风车。我们的记者 Tim Ferholz 报道了许多其他初创公司，它们显然不会上市，对吧？但如果 SpaceX 的太空数据中心取得成功，它们就会利用这种潜力筹集资金，并在此基础上建立业务。因此，整个市场正在产生一种连锁反应，我认为……