Thomas Laffont: The $4T AI IPO Wave Is Coming… and We've Never Seen Anything Like It
Why do you think I waited to make my world podcast premiere for Allin?
你知道我为什么要把我的播客全球首秀留给 All-In 吗？
All the ankle biters called and I said, "No, I'm just going to wait till the besties call."
那些小角色都打来电话，我都说不，我就等好友们来邀请。
CO2 is one of the most successful hedge funds of the last two decades.
科图在过去二十年里是最成功的对冲基金之一。
$55 billion under management.
管理资产规模 550 亿美元。
This is their flagship hedge fund.
这是他们的旗舰对冲基金。
The reason we decided to kind of get into this business is to find great entrepreneurs and find great companies.
我们选择进入这个行业的原因，是为了找到优秀的创业者和卓越的公司。
And they're looking to raise a whole billion dollars more to invest in AI.
他们正计划再募集整整 10 亿美元投入 AI 领域。
We're in an idea business.
我们做的是创意生意。
And when you have a truly revolutionary idea, it can get really big.
当你拥有一个真正革命性的想法，它可以做得非常大。
I hope to do something a little bit different.
我希望今天能做点稍有不同的事。
Besties, you've been on for a couple hours, so you can take a break now for a few minutes.
好友们，你们已经播了好几个小时了，现在可以休息几分钟。
Sit back.
坐好放松。
We are going to show you some slides and we're going to walk you through really an update on the unicorn economy.
我们要展示一些幻灯片，带你们回顾独角兽经济的最新动态。
So, the markets are back.
市场回来了。
We can see that the unicorn economy on average since September of 24 is up 70%.
我们可以看到，独角兽经济自 2024 年 9 月以来平均涨幅达 70%。
I think that's intuitive to a lot of us.
我想这对我们很多人来说是直觉上合理的。
But what's even more amazing is that the public market has really made the same move up.
但更令人惊叹的是，公开市场其实走出了同样的上行行情。
So if we look at the share of the unicorn economy of the NASDAQ, which had a significant move up since 2015, it's really kind of plateaued over the past few years.
如果我们看独角兽经济在纳斯达克的份额占比，自 2015 年以来经历了大幅上涨，但过去几年基本上已趋于平稳。
And I think it speaks to the performance of public companies like Palo Alto and others.
我认为这体现了 Palo Alto 等上市公司的业绩表现。
So AI is dominating fundraising.
AI 正在主导融资市场。
What's kind of interesting in this slide is you can see the share continues to increase.
这张幻灯片有趣的地方在于，你可以看到份额持续增加。
So multiple years in a row now that AI is increasing its wallet share of fundraising.
连续多年，AI 在融资市场中的钱包份额都在增长。
But the composition of that funding has changed.
但这些资金的构成已经发生了变化。
If you look at the unicorn factory which really peaked in the Zer era of 2021, we've now really normalized at a much lower level precoid.
如果你看一下独角兽工厂，它在 2021 年零利率时代真正达到顶峰，现在已经回归正常化，远低于新冠前的水平。
So mathematically if you put both together you can see that the funding per unicorn has increased 5x since 2021.
从数学上讲，把两者放在一起，你可以看到每家独角兽获得的融资金额自 2021 年以来增长了 5 倍。
So we have fewer unicorns that are each raising more.
独角兽数量减少了，但每家获得的融资更多了。
Now I'm going to spend a minute on this slide because this slide is really about the health of our ecosystem.
我要花一点时间讲这张幻灯片，因为它真正关乎我们生态系统的健康状况。
So the way to interpret this is if you look at the green line which is the preserp era unicorn cohort of which there's about 73 you can see that 20 quarters after becoming a unicorn 80% of them had either raised a new round or exited which is I would say pretty healthy.
解读方式是这样的：看绿线，这是新冠前时代的独角兽群体，大约有 73 家，可以看到成为独角兽 20 个季度后，有 80% 的公司要么完成了新一轮融资，要么已经退出，我认为这相当健康。
Now if we look at the 2021 cohort which is the red line two things stand out.
现在如果我们看 2021 年的群体，也就是红线，有两点很突出。
first that 20 quarters in, you can see less than 20% less had either exited or raised.
第一，到第 20 个季度，可以看到只有不到 20% 的公司完成了退出或融资。
But look at the number 479 versus 73 in the prior cohort.
但请看数字：479 对比此前群体的 73。
So now here comes this new cohort, what we'll call our 2024 cohort of AI companies.
现在来了一个新群体，我们称之为 2024 年的 AI 公司群体。
And the key question is what will happen in the future?
关键问题是：未来会发生什么？
Which of these cohorts will they resemble the most?
这些公司将最终更像哪一个群体？
So we talked about how AI is concentrating the funding base of unicorns, but what we also see is the top 10 is capturing a significant share of funding.
我们谈到了 AI 如何集中了独角兽的融资基础，但我们同样看到，前 10 名正在吸走大量融资份额。
So it's not just AI companies, it's a small number of AI companies, which probably makes sense since we know that Enthropic and OpenAI are raising massive rounds.
不只是 AI 公司，而是少数几家 AI 公司，这可能是合理的，因为我们知道 Anthropic 和 OpenAI 都在进行大规模融资。
And so what I like to think is we kind of have a new index.
所以我喜欢这样想：我们有了一个新的指数。
If we really thought about what the index of the future is, what for now I'll be able to call the magnificent 8, but that number is going to shrink as these companies go public.
如果我们真正思考未来的指数是什么，我现在姑且称它为「壮丽八强」，但随着这些公司上市，这个数字会缩减。
The first thing that jumps to my mind is, wow, what an incredible group of companies.
第一个跳入我脑海的想法是，哇，这是一批多么了不起的公司。
And look at the diversity.
看看这种多样性。
SpaceX, Stripe, Anthropic, Data Bricks, Revolute, Bite Dance, Anderero.
SpaceX、Stripe、Anthropic、Databricks、Revolut、字节跳动、Anduril。
We have internet, we have AI, we have fintech, we have space tech.
有互联网、有 AI、有金融科技、有太空科技。
I'd feel pretty comfortable owning this index if I could for the next decade plus.
如果我能持有这个指数未来十年以上，我会非常安心。
And obviously the performance of this index has been incredible.
这个指数的表现当然也非常出色。
It represents almost $4 trillion of value and has really crushed the traditional kind of mag 7.
它代表了近 4 万亿美元的价值，并且真正碾压了传统的七巨头。
Almost every single one of these names has outperformed that index.
这里几乎每一个名字都跑赢了那个指数。
We'll go to the next slide.
翻到下一张。
Now, another positive sign is that if we look at the exits, the exits are thawing.
还有一个积极信号，就是我们看退出情况，退出正在解冻。
So, one of the things that we've talked a lot about with the besties over the years is we know the unicorn economy is great at consuming cash, but how much cash is it really returning?
过去几年我们和好友们谈了很多：独角兽经济很擅长消耗现金，但它真正返还了多少现金？
We need to have a balance between the amount of cash consumed to the amount of cash returned.
我们需要在消耗现金与回报现金之间保持平衡。
That's how an ecosystem stays in balance.
这就是生态系统保持平衡的方式。
And if we look, 2026 is actually on a pretty good trend.
从数据来看，2026 年的走势相当不错。
Not quite where 2021 was, but pretty good.
还没到 2021 年的水平，但相当不错。
And we still have half a year to go.
而且我们还有半年时间。
that doesn't include three companies that we know will be coming public pretty shortly.
这还不包括我们知道即将上市的三家公司。
SpaceX obviously in the next few weeks and we know Anthropic just today the headlines hit that they've submitted confidentially for their S1.
SpaceX 显然会在未来几周上市，我们今天刚知道 Anthropic 已秘密提交了 S-1 文件。
And if you add up the totality of just those three companies, you can see that it's basically going to be more than the 10 years kind of combined.
如果你把这三家公司的总体规模加在一起，可以看到，这基本上将超过过去 10 年的合计数据。
Which ultimately means if you remember and you were there when I presented the first all-in summit in 2024, we knew our ecosystem was out of balance, we were consuming way more cash than we were returning, which is just a fundamental imbalance.
这最终意味着，如果你记得 2024 年第一届全明星峰会，我们当时就知道我们的生态系统失衡，消耗的现金远超回报，这是根本性的失衡。
And you can see that now even pre liquidity events that I just mentioned, our ecosystem is significantly more balanced and that will continue to improve.
而你现在可以看到，即便在我刚提到的流动性事件发生之前，我们的生态系统已经明显更加平衡，而且还会继续改善。
Part of it is that the growth rates of open AI and anthropic are unlike anything that we've ever seen.
部分原因在于，OpenAI 和 Anthropic 的增长速度是我们前所未见的。
So if you look at this chart, just remember this chart starts in January of 2025.
如果你看这张图，请记住，这张图从 2025 年 1 月开始。
That was only a year and a half ago.
那才是一年半前的事。
Just a few months in, these companies passed Workday, a pretty incredible HR company.
短短几个月内，这些公司就超过了 Workday，一家非常出色的人力资源公司。
Then it was Service Now.
然后是 ServiceNow。
It was Adobe by the end of the year.
年底超过了 Adobe。
Salesforce on the way just in January.
今年 1 月刚刚超过 Salesforce。
Now even bigger than Google Cloud and Azure.
现在甚至已经比 Google Cloud 和 Azure 还要大。
So what can that look like in the future?
那未来会是什么样子？
Well, this is just based on kind of some assumptions and some forecasts, but you can see that we estimate that only not only is it bigger than Azure, but by the end of the year could be bigger than AWS.
这只是基于一些假设和预测，但可以看到，我们估计不仅仅是超过 Azure，到今年年底甚至可能超过 AWS。
and potentially bigger than all of Microsoft by 2028.
到 2028 年，有可能超过整个微软。
Now, these hyperscalers aren't sitting still.
当然，这些超大规模云服务商也没有坐以待毙。
They're seeing the disruption, but actually they're doing more than seeing it.
他们看到了颠覆，但实际上他们做的不止于此。
They're actually funding it.
他们实际上在资助这场颠覆。
Because if you look at the chat GBT moment that we know happened, look at how much these companies, the largest in the world, have invested in enabling and creating this change.
因为如果你看看 ChatGPT 时刻的发生，再看看这些全球最大的公司投入了多少，来推动和创造这种变革。
Truly unprecedented.
真的是史无前例。
So I know SpaceX, a lot of people are going to talk about SpaceX.
我知道 SpaceX，很多人都会谈到 SpaceX。
So I thought I would share a little bit of how we as investors think about SpaceX.
所以我想分享一下我们作为投资者是如何看待 SpaceX 的。
So that as you think about whether it's a stock that you want to own or you just want to seem smart at a cocktail party, you can benefit from our knowledge.
这样无论你是在考虑是否要持有这只股票，还是只想在鸡尾酒派对上显得博闻多识，都能从我们的分析中受益。
The first thing that pops out when we look and study SpaceX is that the number one driver correlated to the valuation of SpaceX is cadence of launches, which intuitively makes sense.
当我们研究 SpaceX 时，第一个映入眼帘的是：与 SpaceX 估值最相关的驱动因素是发射频次，这从直觉上是讲得通的。
If your business is the launch business, the more you launch, the higher your value should be.
如果你的业务是发射业务，发射越多，价值自然越高。
So I think we see that in the data.
我认为数据也印证了这一点。
But there's another fundamentally different ratio that I want to point you to which is what if we took the valuation, we divided it by the number of launches.
但还有一个根本性的不同比率想请你关注，那就是：如果我们用估值除以发射次数，会看到什么？
What would that look like?
会是什么样子？
Well, you can see it was kind of in a fixed range for a while and then it really started to move up.
你可以看到，在一段时间内它基本保持在一个固定区间，然后真正开始上涨。
And we believe that markets are rational.
我们相信市场是理性的。
And so we started thinking, well, why is it that the market is valuing SpaceX higher on a perlaunch basis when it's launching more than when it was just starting out?
所以我们开始思考：为什么市场在 SpaceX 发射次数更多时，反而给出了更高的单次发射估值，而不是在它刚起步时？
And my fundamental view, and we'll kind of call this our code framework, is that the reason is that the quality of SpaceX's business model increases the more you launch.
我的基本判断，我们姑且称之为科图框架，是：原因在于，SpaceX 的商业模式质量随着发射次数的增多而提升。
So, in phase one, which we call pre-constellation, you're just trying your rockets.
在第一阶段，也就是我们称之为「星座构建前」阶段，你只是在试验火箭。
And we know rockets are hard and maybe you have a few government customers and that's a one-time revenue business and it's unpredictable.
我们知道火箭很难，也许你有几个政府客户，这是一次性收入业务，不可预测。
Then you get into your initial ramp and now you might have one constellation.
然后你进入初始爬坡阶段，这时你可能拥有一个星座了。
So, why is a constellation important?
那么，星座为什么重要？
Well, it's an end market and it's a recurring revenue business.
它是一个终端市场，也是一门持续性收入业务。
The more satellites you put up, the more subscribers you have, the more revenue, etc.
你发射的卫星越多，用户越多，收入也就越多，等等。
Now you can move from ramp into scale.
现在你可以从爬坡阶段进入规模阶段。
Now you don't just have one constellation, you have multiple constellations.
这时你不只拥有一个星座，而是有多个星座。
And ultimately, we believe that a ride a wide variety of companies and governments and militaries will want to own their own constellation so they can control their own destiny.
最终，我们相信，各类公司、政府和军队都会希望拥有自己的星座，以掌控自己的命运。
So now you move into being a scale business which ultimately becomes a platform and we know how valuable these platforms are in this technology age and platform means not only do you have many more customers in your core business but you also have new businesses.
这样你就变成了一家规模化企业，最终成为一个平台，我们都知道在这个科技时代这些平台有多么宝贵，平台意味着你不仅在核心业务中拥有更多客户，还有新的业务线。
It could be space data centers.
可以是太空数据中心。
It could be the optionality of the moon and Mars and other space applications.
也可以是月球、火星以及其他太空应用的期权价值。
Now we know one defining feature of this era has been how quickly these companies are scaling.
这个时代有一个显著特征，就是这些公司规模扩张的速度之快。