E71: Plaid IPO?, NY State sues Gemini, Amazon + humanoid robots, AI and your kids/business | Pre-IPO Stock Podcast – Oct 23, 2023 | Clint Sorenson, Nick Fusco, Aaron Dillon

Send us Fan Mail00:18 | Plaid IPO?- Plaid hired former Expedia exec, Eric Hart, as their CFO, sparking IPO rumors- Plaid laid off 20% of their staff in 2022, IPO prep?- Visa's attempt to acquire Plaid for $5b was killed by regulators re: antitrust- Plaid at $15.4b implied secondary market valuation, +15% from Apr 2021 round at $13.4b valuation- “High quality” IPOs are coming … larger valuations, broader current investor base … Plaid, Databricks, Stripe06:53 | NY State sues Gemini- Gemini’s Earn product allocated money to DCG’s Genesis which subsequently allocated to Three Arrows Capital and Alameda Research, both of which went bankrupt, leaving a $1.1b deficit- FTX’s Anthropic investment could fill the $1.1b deficit- “Picks and shovels” crypto companies are of particular interest; e.g. Kraken, Fireblocks, ConsenSys- Secondary market buyers have pulled back, both buyers and sellers13:12 | Amazon + humanoid robots- Amazon testing Agility Robotics’ Digit humanoid robot in warehouses- Robotics and AI would play a significant part in lives over the next 5 to 10 years, impacting business and geopolitics- Robotics will have a positive impact on economic growth, population decline will require robotics to enhance productivity- Robotics have been around for a while but humanoid robots are making the opportunity very tangible and real for many- Robotics will drive onshoring manufacturing due to lowered costs of production21:13 | AI and your kids/business- I turned by 5 year old, Duke, loose on ChatGPT audio option this past weekend- Duke has a full on conversation with “Mr. George”, the name he gave ChatGPT- ChatGPT knew Duke was 5 years old and was prompting Duke with questions to further engage and education him- Clint uses ChatGPT to write investment research and create initial drafts of chapters for a book he is writing- AI, like ChatGPT, will make to possibility of “1-person-companies” a reality- A $1.0b valuation 1-person-company is close!