The Investor Who Bet on SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic Before You Could | Term Sheet

A hidden market for shares of the world's hottest private companies has quietly grown to an estimated $112 billion, and most of it happens off the books. As SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic edge toward going public, the investors who poured billions into pre-IPO shares may not actually know what they own. Larry Aschebrook founded G Squared in 2011, when trading secondaries made you a "bottom feeder" who got cease-and-desist letters. Today the firm manages north of $8 billion and holds stakes in SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Larry to talk about the shadow market behind the biggest names in tech, why layered SPVs could leave investors with nothing, and the reckoning he sees coming when these companies finally go public. 0:00 The $4 Trillion Problem Nobody's Talking About 0:56 Hot IPO Summer Is Here 1:58 They Wouldn't Return His Calls 3:15 His First Trade? Twitter Stock 6:06 What Secondaries Actually Are 7:26 The SPV Trap: Fees Stacked on Fees 14:27 The Doctors and Dentists Problem 18:55 Back When This Was Taboo 21:35 What Facebook's Lockup Should Teach You 23:56 "SpaceX Could Force a Reckoning" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices