Schmidt's Anthropic Stake Could Reach 27 Trillion Won

Artificial intelligence (AI) startups have become worth trillions of Korean won in just a few years. This has greatly increased the money early investors could make. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, is one example. Schmidt invested tens of millions of dollars in the AI startup Anthropic when it was still young. If Anthropic becomes worth as much as $2 trillion when it first sells shares to the public in an initial public offering (IPO), his stake could be worth $20 billion, or about 26.7 trillion Korean won.

Bloomberg News reported on the 19th, local time, that Schmidt invested in Anthropic's Series A funding round in 2021. He now owns about 1% of the company. At that time, Anthropic was worth just $461 million. Its value rose to $965 billion in its latest funding round. Investors are now discussing whether the company could be worth between $1.8 trillion and $2 trillion. If it reaches the higher figure, its value will have grown about 4,300 times in just five years.

According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Schmidt's net worth is now about $57.5 billion. If Anthropic becomes worth $2 trillion, his total wealth could rise to nearly $80 billion. Since leaving his job as Google's CEO, Schmidt has invested in hundreds of startups. More recently, he has focused on AI companies, including Mistral AI, Reflection AI, and World Labs. If Anthropic successfully sells shares to the public, it would be his biggest investment success since Uber, which he invested in in 2011.

Anthropic plans to begin officially promoting its IPO to investors as early as the week of November 9. It aims to list its shares before Thanksgiving. Based on the company's current value, each of its seven co-founders is estimated to have wealth worth about $8 billion.