I hold Ode with Anthropic in my Roth IRA.

It was just publicly announced that Anthropic, Blackstone, and Hellman & Friedman launched Ode, an enterprise AI services company built around deploying Claude into large organizations.

What excites me isn’t just the business itself, it’s the economics of investing in a company from the beginning.

When you’re an early investor, you’re not paying a premium for years of future growth that have already been priced in.

You’re participating in the value creation from the start.

Compare that to buying an already-public company.

If investors become excited about its prospects, the stock may eventually trade at a substantial premium to its earnings. New investors have to buy in at those higher valuations, meaning more of the future growth is already reflected in the price they pay. That can reduce their expected future returns. It’s the problem I see with SPCX.

Private investing flips that equation.

If the business succeeds, much of the appreciation happens while you’re already an owner.

Of course, there’s a catch.

Most startups fail.

The risk is significantly higher than investing in established public companies.

But that’s precisely why the upside can be so compelling when you identify exceptional businesses early.