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TWiT 1089: Robot Butt Crack - Anthropic Banned, But Winning
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The AI IPO Boom & San Francisco's Tech Real Estate Transformation
At 2:37:15 · chapter starts 2:37:10
Owen Thomas, whose publication ran the cover story, explains that the AI IPO wave is unlike previous tech booms: OpenAI and Anthropic grew so fast that their early employee cohorts are far smaller than at Facebook or Salesforce, meaning the wealth created by going public will be highly concentrated. SpaceX's IPO minted roughly 400 millionaires, not the thousands that Google's IPO created. Meanwhile, both companies are near or at one million square feet of leased office space in San Francisco — Anthropic has cornered three consecutive blocks of Howard Street (dubbed 'Anthropic Row'), and OpenAI has dominated Mission Bay. The panel compares this to Amazon and Microsoft transforming Seattle, and to Salesforce's earlier role in San Francisco's commercial real estate — though Leo notes Twitter's transformative moment didn't last.
OpenAI and Anthropic are each approaching one million square feet of leased office space in San Francisco — enough for 6,000–7,000 employees each. Anthropic has cornered three consecutive blocks of Howard Street. San Francisco may be being reshaped by AI companies the way Seattle was by Amazon and Microsoft.
Both OpenAI and Anthropic are near or at one million square feet of leased office space in San Francisco, implying workforces of 6,000–7,000 employees each.
