Wall Street Ramps Up Efforts to Manage Anthropic Employees' IPO Windfalls

Wall Street's biggest wealth businesses are already jockeying for position to manage the expected IPO windfalls of Anthropic employees. Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, BNY, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo have been discussing their wealth-management services with the AI company.

Anthropic asked firms to pitch their services, providing details on fees and offerings, according to people familiar with the process. Smaller boutiques and advisory firms also responded, turning a future liquidity event into an unusual prospecting opportunity.

The potential prize is enormous: Anthropic's IPO could raise as much money or more than SpaceX's $86.2 billion debut, making equity holders suddenly very wealthy.

Brandon Smith of Laird Norton Wetherby, which submitted information to Anthropic and has already been speaking with employees, called this outcome 'very reasonable.' He compared the rapid appreciation of AI companies to holding a lottery ticket, where equity granted only two years ago can now represent a fortune.