The AI company everyone’s been waiting for just filed to go public. A student movement just brought down the most powerful man in the Balkans. And California votes next week on whether to tax its billionaires, some of whom have already left. Here’s what you need to know, and what our guests saw coming.
Anthropic files to go public
Last week I told you the biggest IPO in history was coming. Today it got real. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, publicly filed its IPO prospectus and plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT.
The numbers are staggering. Revenue for the first half of 2026 was $16.3 billion, up from $1.16 billion a year earlier, and the company made its first operating profit in the second quarter. The headline net loss of $80.7 billion looks scary, but most of it is an accounting charge on bonds that convert into shares, not cash going out the door. The filing also flags a real risk: its fight with the Pentagon and the Trump administration could cause “material revenue losses”. The price range is still blank.
Here’s the part most people will miss. Almost all of that value was built while the company was private. By the time you can buy ANT in a brokerage account, the early money will have made its move. Back in 2015, Suranga Chandratillake of Balderton Capital told me this was the new normal: “a lot of these companies have been able to raise significant, significant amounts of capital without going public.”
▶ Watch Suranga Chandratillake on private capital from 47:25
He was talking about Airbnb, Uber and Square. Swap in today’s AI companies and he could have said it this morning.
Students bring down Serbia’s strongman
For two years, students in Serbia have been marching. It started in November 2024, when a concrete canopy collapsed at Novi Sad railway station and killed 16 people. The anger over corruption never went away. On Sunday it went to the ballot box, and Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat.
The student-led list is projected to win 135 to 140 of the 250 seats, on the highest turnout in more than 30 years. “It is clear that we have lost these elections,” Vučić said. Now a movement with no leader has to pick a prime minister, and Serbia faces a presidential election in December.
Here’s the history that makes this extraordinary. In the late 1990s, Vučić was Slobodan Milošević’s information minister. Christiane Amanpour covered the Balkan wars for CNN, and when I asked if she ever ended up liking the leaders she interviewed, she didn’t hesitate: “Not Milosevic. I loathed him with a passion that even surprised myself.”
▶ Watch Christiane Amanpour on Milosevic from 14:19
Thirty years later, the last big political figure from that era has been voted out by people who weren’t born when it ended. Never underestimate young people who’ve had enough.
California votes on taxing its billionaires
Next Tuesday, 3 November, Californians vote on Proposition 40: a one-time 5% tax on the total wealth of every resident worth more than $1 billion. It’s neck and neck. One recent poll has it at 46% for and 43% against, and opponents have raised more than $205 million to kill it.
The twist: the tax only applies to people who lived in California on 1 January this year. Some didn’t wait to find out. Reports say Peter Thiel, Larry Page and Sergey Brin were among six billionaires who left before the deadline, and Brin alone has spent more than $100 million fighting the measure. Mark Zuckerberg stayed, and Meta’s board just approved a deal that lets him sell non-voting shares to pay the bill without losing control of the company.
Rory Sutherland, the vice chairman of Ogilvy, explained the psychology to me better than any economist: “Wealth taxes drive people practically crazy because they say, well, I’ve already paid tax on this… and now I’ve saved it all up, you’re planning to tax it.”
▶ Watch Rory Sutherland on wealth taxes from 53:58
Whether it passes or not, the lesson is the same one I see every week in Dubai. Capital, and the people who own it, can move. And they do.
The week ahead
Israel votes on Tuesday. Microsoft and Alphabet report on Wednesday, Amazon on Thursday, and the Fed, the ECB and the Bank of Japan all decide on rates this week. Bitcoin is holding around $80,000 while oil eases on hopes of calm in the Gulf.
Which of these stories are you watching? Tell me on X at @brianbrose.
P.S. The Anthropic filing is the clearest proof yet that AI value gets created before the IPO. That’s why our AI Investment Club meets private AI founders before the headlines. And if, like a lot of wealthy families right now, you’re thinking about where to be, see what we’re building in Dubai with the Luxury Property Investment Circle.
This is commentary, not financial advice. Do your own research.
