AI is creating new billionaires at a record rate

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The new artificial intelligence companies have coined dozens of new billionaires this year, which adds to a rise of AI that is quickly becoming the greatest spree of wealth creation in recent history.

Blockbuster fund collection rounds this year for anthropic, safe superintelligence, Openai, Anysphere and other startups have created vast new fortunes of paper and valuations driven at record levels. There are now 498 “unicorns” of AI, or private companies with valuations of $ 1 billion or more, with a combined value of $ 2.7 billion, according to CB Insights. 100 of them were completely founded since 2023. There are more than 1,300 new AI companies with valuations of more than $ 100 million, the firm said.

Combined with the high prices of the actions of Nvidia, Goal, Microsoft and other companies related to publicly negotiated, together with the infrastructure companies that are building data and computer energy centers and the large payments for AI engineers, AI is creating personal wealth on a scale that makes the two technological waves heaters.

“Returning more than 100 years of data, we have never seen the wealth created at this size and speed,” said Andrew Mcafee, MIT principal researcher. “It has no precedents.”

A new multimillionaire harvest is increasing with balancing assessments. In March, Bloomberg estimated that four of the largest private companies had created at least 15 billionaires with a combined net worth of $ 38 billion. Since then, more than a dozen unicorns have been crowned.

Look Murati, who left AI open last September, threw Thinking Machines Lab in February. For July, he raised $ 2 billion in the largest round of seeds in history, which gave the company an assessment of $ 12 billion, according to reports.

Anthrope AI is in conversations to raise $ 5 billion at an assessment of $ 170 billion, almost three times its valuation in March. According to people familiar with the company, the CEO Dario Amodei and its other six founders are probably multibillionaires.

Anysphere was valued at $ 9.9 billion in a collection of June funds and only a few weeks later an assessment of $ 18 billion to $ 20 billion was offered, which probably made its founder and 25 -year -old CEO, Michael Tuelll, a multimillionaire.

According to most of the creation of the wealth of AI is found in private companies, which makes it difficult for capital holders and founders to retire. Unlike the boom of the Puntocom of the late 1990s, when an avalanche of companies became public, the new companies of today can be kept private for longer given the constant investment of venture capital funds, sovereign wealth funds, family offices and other technological investors.

At the same time, the rapid growth of secondary markets is allowing private capital owners to sell their shares to other investors and provide liquidity. Structured secondary sales or bidding offers are being generalized. Many founders can also borrow against their equity.

Open AI is having conversations for a secondary sale of shares to provide cash to employees. Its proposed valuation of $ 500 billion follows the collection of company funds in March that provided an assessment of $ 300 billion.

Dozens of private companies are being acquired or merged, which also provides liquidity. After the finish line, he invested $ 14.3 billion in AI on a scale, Founder Alexandr Wang joined the Meta team. According to CB Insights, there have been 73 liquidity events, including mergers and acquisitions, OPI, reverse mergers or corporate majority participations, since 2023. After the goal ofal, the co -founder of Scale AI, Lucy Guo, who left the company in 2018, bought a mansion in Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles for about $ 30 million.

Even so, the increase in AI is largely focused on the Bay area, reminiscent of the Era of the points-com. Last year, Silicon Valley Companies raised more than $ 35 billion in risk funds, according to the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies. San Francisco now has more billionaires than New York, with 82 compared to the 66 of New York, according to New World Wealth and Henley & Partners. The millionaire population of the Bay area has doubled in the last decade, compared to the growth of 45%of New York.

More houses were sold above $ 20 million in San Francisco last year than in any other year in history, according to Sotheby's International Realty. The increase in rentals, housing prices and demand in the city, attributed largely to AI, mark a strong change for a city that faces a “fatality loop” only a few years ago.

“It is surprising how geographically this wave of AI is,” said Mcafee, who is also co -director of the MIT initiative on the digital economy. “People who know how to find, finance and grow the technology companies are there. I have heard people say for 25 years” this is the end of the Silicon Valley “or some other place is” The New Silicon Valley. “But Silicon Valley is still Silicon Valley.”

With time and initial public offers, many of the private fortunes of today will eventually become more liquid, providing a historical opportunity for heritage management companies. All the main private banks, wires, independent advisors and boutique firms are accumulating the elite of AI in the hope of winning their business, according to Tech Advisors.

However, like the Dot-Comment Millionaires, attracting the AI RICA can be a challenge for traditional wealth management companies. Simon Krinsky, executive managing director of Pathstone and former managing director of Hall Capital Partners in San Francisco, said that the majority of the wealth of AI is locked in private companies and, therefore, cannot become equity management accounts.

“I would say that a much higher percentage of the final wealth that is being created is illegid,” he said. “There are ways to obtain liquidity, but it is small compared to being used in goal or Google” or other technology company that quotes in Megacap stock.

Finally, those fortunes will become liquid and appreciated by heritage management companies. Krinsky said that it is likely that the rich of IA follows patterns of clients similar to the newly rich points of the 1990s. Initially, the points commanders used their excess liquidity and assets to invest in similar technological companies that they knew through their networks, colleagues or shared investors. He said that the same is probably true for the rich.

“Everyone turned around and invested with their friends in the same type of companies that created their own wealth,” he said.

After discovering the dangers that all its wealth is concentrated in a highly volative and speculative industry, the points commanders resorted to wealth management. And having born disruptors, many changed their capital and skills to reinvent the heritage management industry in their image. The founder of Netscape, Jim Clark, for example, helped launch MyCFO, an answer to his disgust for bankers and industry.

Krinksy said it is likely that today's entrepreneurs follow the same path, with great potential for AI to interrupt, if not replace, many of the traditional functions of wealth management.

However, ultimately, the founders of the Ultra Ricos will discover the need for the traditional and personalized service that only dedicated heritage management teams can provide, either around taxes, inheritances and heritage planning, or philanthropy and portfolio construction advice.

“After people were beaten or bruised in the early 2000s, they came to appreciate a certain degree of diversification and perhaps hire a professional manager to protect them from themselves,” Krinksy said. “I anticipate a similar trend with group AI”.