The Midas List is a lie.
It tracks mark-to-market vanity. It does not track realized gold. Today, Forbes released its 25th anniversary Midas List. It is a celebration of paper billionaires. The names are familiar. SpaceX. OpenAI. Anthropic. These three entities now command valuations that reshape the entire venture landscape. They are no longer just startups. They are sovereign-scale infrastructure projects. But beneath the staggering numbers lies a liquidity crisis that the industry is desperate to ignore. The exit window is not just narrow. It is a bottleneck for $3 trillion in concentrated value.
The Big Three and the Revenue Reality
Valuations have detached from traditional software multiples. Anthropic is currently finalizing a funding round exceeding $30 billion. The reported valuation sits at $900 billion. This is not a typo. The company is on track to surpass OpenAI as the world’s most valuable private AI firm. The growth is mechanical. Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate hit $30 billion in April. That is up from $9 billion at the end of last year. Per reports from Bloomberg, enterprise clients now represent 80% of that total. This is recurring institutional spending. It is not consumer hype.
OpenAI is not far behind. It closed a $122 billion round in March at an $852 billion valuation. It is now preparing for a September IPO. The target is $1 trillion. But the burn is equally historic. OpenAI is projected to lose $14 billion this year. It is a race between capital exhaustion and market dominance. Meanwhile, SpaceX has transcended the aerospace category. Following its all-stock merger with xAI in February, the combined entity is targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation for its June 12 listing on the Nasdaq. According to Reuters, this would make it the largest IPO in history, surpassing Saudi Aramco.
Projected Valuation Growth of the Big Three (2024-2026)
The Secondary Market Mirage
LPs are screaming for liquidity. The Midas List reflects this tension. Nine of the top ten companies driving investor performance remain privately held. This is the highest percentage in the ranking’s history. For decades, venture capital relied on the IPO to reset the clock. Now, the secondary market is the only functioning valve. In the first quarter of 2026, AI companies captured 81% of global venture funding. That is $240 billion flowing into a handful of firms. The rest of the ecosystem is starving.
Secondary platforms like Forge Global and Hiive are seeing record volumes. But the discounts are brutal. While SpaceX trades at a premium due to its impending IPO, other unicorns are selling at 40% to 60% discounts to their last primary rounds. VCs are using these sales to return capital to investors. It is a desperate attempt to show “realized” gains before the next fundraising cycle. The concentration of value is a systemic risk. If the SpaceX IPO stumbles on June 12, the entire secondary market could freeze. The “Paper Billionaire” era would face its first true margin call.
The Rise of the Sovereign Stack
Venture capital is transforming into a geopolitical tool. We are seeing the death of the generalist fund. In its place is the “Sovereign Stack.” This model prioritizes technological self-sufficiency over rapid software scaling. Anthropic and OpenAI are no longer being judged as SaaS companies. They are being valued as energy and compute utilities. This shift explains the massive capital requirements. OpenAI’s plan to spend $500 billion on infrastructure by 2030 is a sovereign-level commitment. It requires a different kind of underwriting.
Investors like Vinod Khosla and Yasmin Razavi have climbed the Midas List by making concentrated bets on these infrastructure plays. Razavi’s $75 million check into Anthropic is now worth $3 billion. But these are exceptions. For the average venture firm, the math no longer works. Management fees are at historic lows. LPs are demanding a shift toward Milestone-based funding. The era of “spray and pray” is over. The era of the industrial AI titan has begun.
Watch the SpaceX S-1 pricing window. The roadshow begins on June 8. If the market accepts a $1.75 trillion valuation for a company losing $4.2 billion a quarter, the AI bubble has room to run. If not, the Midas List of 2027 will look very different.
