Planning Ahead for the Anthropic IPO
The tax-saving and wealth-preservation moves to make before the IPO — six short episodes, watch in any order.
Overview + five plays
Start with whichever maps to a decision you're facing soon.
The pre-IPO opportunity
Anthropic's ~50× climb in two years — and why the highest-value moves happen before the stock is public.
Concentration vs. diversification
How much to take off the table, and how much to let ride. The most common regret we hear — and how to avoid it.
Protecting unvested equity
Insure the largest asset you don't legally own yet — before illness or injury can erase it.
Moving growth out of your estate
Gift tomorrow's appreciation at today's value — and push the government's share toward zero.
Lowering your income taxes
Residence, timing, and loss-harvesting — the levers that decide how much of the IPO you keep.
Charitable legacy
Give appreciated stock, skip the gains, and capture a match we haven't seen anywhere else.
Book a conversation
Tell us where you are and we'll map your equity, timeline, and goals — one call, no obligation.
Most of the value is created before the IPO.
Anthropic's private valuation has climbed ~50× in two years — and an IPO could nearly double it again.
Episode 1 is available now — to see episodes 2–6 please enter your email.
An IPO is one of the largest wealth-creation events of your life — but for Anthropic employees, most of the value careful planning can create is captured before the stock ever trades, while the growth is steepest and the tax lowest.
Anthropic's post-money valuation has climbed from about $18B in early 2024 to $965B by mid-2026 — roughly 50× in two years — and a public offering could nearly double it again. That's why the highest-value moves happen now, while the company is still private. The five plays that follow are each about keeping more of that growth rather than handing it to the tax system by default.
Anthropic post-money valuation, by round
≈50× in two years — and an IPO could nearly double it again.
Valuations illustrative by round; a future IPO price is hypothetical (SpaceX debuted near $2T). Not investment advice.
Take the plays in any order. Here's the road ahead:
Five plays, five episodes
How much to diversify and when.
Lock down enough to cover your living needs — then stay concentrated in the upside most advisors make you sell.
Episode 1 is available now — to see episodes 2–6 please enter your email.
Most advisors will tell you to diversify the moment you can — take the risk off the table immediately. There's wisdom in that, but there's an old line worth remembering: concentrate to get rich, diversify to stay rich.
Across decades of working with technology employees, the most common regret we hear isn't that someone held too long — it's that they diversified too much, too soon, and watched the upside they'd earned accrue to someone else. The goal isn't to eliminate risk; it's to right-size it.
The move is to diversify only what you need. Secure a base large enough to fund your family's lifetime needs — roughly 20× your annual living expenses — and let everything above that stay concentrated, where the real wealth is built.
Diversify only what you need
A base you can never outlive — then let the rest compound.
Illustrative and educational; not investment advice.
How much is enough? The size of your diversified "liquidity wall" decides how long it funds your lifestyle before it runs dry:
| Diversified bucket | Depletes | At age | Years it lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2M | 2033 | 47 | 7 |
| $3M | 2037 | 51 | 11 |
| $4M | 2043 | 57 | 17 |
| $5M | 2049 | 63 | 23 |
| $6M | 2058 | 72 | 32 |
| $7M | 2069 | 83 | 43 |
| $8M | Beyond 2086 | — | >60 |
- 1Secure the baseFund your family's lifetime needs first — no matter what the stock does next.
- 2Keep a meaningful positionLet a deliberate, sized slice stay concentrated to capture the upside early diversification would forfeit.
- 3Diversify on milestonesTrim further as the stock clears pre-set valuation targets — not on emotion or a calendar.
In plain terms: Concentration keeps more wealth in a single stock for higher potential return — and higher risk; diversification spreads it across many holdings to reduce that risk.
Your biggest asset is one you don't own yet.
Insure the equity that makes up most of your compensation — while it's still at risk.
Episode 1 is available now — to see episodes 2–6 please enter your email.
For most Anthropic employees, the single largest line on the balance sheet isn't cash or a home — it's unvested RSUs and options.
People insure their income with health and life coverage, but overlook the risk that's roughly seven times more likely than death during working years: disability. A serious illness or an accident that keeps you from working can cause unvested equity to simply vanish.
What your current coverage misses
Group long-term disability pays $0 on your equity — the bulk of your pay.
Layer the coverage
Your employer's group long-term disability plan helps, but it's capped — typically around 60% of base salary up to about $12,000/month — and it does nothing for the equity that makes up the bulk of your pay. The fix is to layer coverage.
- 1Group LTD~60% of salary, capped near $12,000/month. Doesn't cover equity.
- 2Individual policyAdds another 60–70% of salary on top of the group plan.
- 3High-limit lump sumA lump-sum benefit sized to your RSUs — up to ~$50M to replace lost equity.
In plain terms: Long-term disability (LTD) insurance replaces income if you can't work. "Own-occupation" coverage pays if you can't do your specific job — important for specialized roles.
Move tomorrow's growth out of your estate.
Gift appreciation before the IPO — and push the government's share toward zero.
Episode 1 is available now — to see episodes 2–6 please enter your email.
When you die, your estate goes to one of three places: your heirs, charity, or the government. Left unplanned, the government's share is large — 40% federal, and with some state estate taxes layered on, the combined bite can approach 40–60%.
Where your estate goes
It starts with the exemption. Each person can currently pass roughly $15 million ($30 million for a married couple) free of federal gift and estate tax — but that figure has changed repeatedly and could shrink. You can't bank on it being there later; you can use it now. Gifting shares into an irrevocable trust before the IPO removes those assets — and, critically, all of their future growth — from your taxable estate. Gift $30M of stock today, watch it become ~$90M after the public step-up, and the entire gain sits outside your estate.
Two structures do the heavy lifting — both freeze today's value and pass the future growth to heirs, differing mainly in what comes back to you and whether they use your lifetime exemption:
| IDGT | GRAT | |
|---|---|---|
| In one line | Gift shares into the trust | Trust pays you an annuity back |
| You contribute | $10M gift of shares | $10M into the trust |
| Comes back to you | Nothing — a completed gift | ≈ $5.39M / yr for 2 years |
| Uses your exemption? | Yes — the full $10M | No — it's "zeroed-out" |
| GST exemption? | Yes — skips a generation of tax | No — none available |
| To heirs (if it doubles) | ≈ $20M | ≈ $6.98M |
In plain terms: An IDGT (Intentionally Defective Grantor Trust) receives a completed gift of shares, yet you keep paying its income tax — letting it grow untaxed for heirs and skip a generation of tax (GST). A GRAT (Grantor Retained Annuity Trust) pays you an annuity back while passing the excess growth to heirs, using none of your exemption.
The biggest swing is state tax.
Federal is largely fixed. Where you live at exercise and sale can move the number by millions.
Episode 1 is available now — to see episodes 2–6 please enter your email.
When the company goes public and you begin selling RSUs or exercising options, the income tax can be enormous — especially in California. You have more control than you think.
- 1ResidenceVesting RSUs or exercising options as a CA resident can materially raise the bill; NQSO income is sourced pro-rata to each state for the time from grant to exercise. Relocating — compounded over a lifetime — can save tens of millions.
- 2Exercise timingExercise early (if you have the cash) to cut liability before the stock re-rates higher — we have a lending option to fund it. Or wait until you've been in a lower-tax state or near retirement. ISOs are usually exercised early to start the clock — mind the AMT.
- 3Sale timingHold to long-term and the federal rate can fall from 40.8% to 23.8%. NQSOs and ISOs are taxed differently — worth a careful look — and selling after time in a favorable state lowers it further.
- 4Loss strategiesLong/short direct indexing can materially offset realized capital gains; we also have fund strategies that throw off ordinary losses to offset W-2 income.
In plain terms: ISOs can trigger AMT (a parallel tax on the paper gain at exercise); NQSOs are taxed as ordinary income on the exercise-day spread.
Give more — and pay less to give it.
With highly appreciated stock, how you give matters as much as how much.
Episode 1 is available now — to see episodes 2–6 please enter your email.
If giving matters to you, the rule of thumb with highly appreciated stock is simple: gift the shares, never the cash.
Gift the shares, not the cash
Value to charity from $10M of appreciated stock.
Illustrative. Donating shares avoids the capital-gains tax on the gain, so more reaches the charity.
The 1:1 match doubles it
On gifts of new-hire-grant stock.
A benefit we haven't seen anywhere else.
Donate appreciated stock to a donor-advised fund (DAF) and you deduct 100% of fair-market value and skip the capital-gains tax on the appreciation entirely — the gain simply comes off your balance sheet. A DAF also separates timing: take the deduction in your big income years, then grant to charities over your entire lifetime while the balance stays invested and grows. Anthropic's program makes this exceptional — it matches gifts of new-hire-grant stock 1:1, a benefit we haven't seen anywhere else.
- 1Donor-advised fund100% FMV deduction, no capital-gains tax, and timing you control.
- 2The 1:1 matchAnthropic matches gifts of new-hire-grant stock — hold those shares if you plan to give.
- 3Private foundationMore control (scholarships, direct causes); must grant ~5% of assets a year.
- 4Estate tie-inA foundation can catch the estate's remainder — the move that helps drive the taxable estate to zero.
Fund it once, give for a lifetime. A donor-advised fund seeded before the IPO can out-give the original gift many times over:
Donor-advised fund — projected lifetime giving
$20M funded across 2026–28 (your $10M + Anthropic's $10M 1:1 match), growing ~7% and granting 5% a year to age 100.
Directional; ~7% growth, 5% annual grants (net corpus ≈ +2%/yr). ~$5M income-tax savings on the 2026–28 gifts. Validate with your tax specialist.
In plain terms: A donor-advised fund (DAF) is a charitable investment account: deduct now, invest the balance, then grant to charities over time. FMV = fair-market value.
Fortis & Mike
Fortis Financial Group is a Seattle-area wealth-management firm built on one idea: your investments, taxes, and estate handled by one team, with one plan. We fold every part of your financial life into a single Total Wealth Solution — the same integrated approach this series is built around.
One integrated plan
Our Total Wealth Solution aligns investments, tax, estate, and risk — so no pre-IPO decision slips through the cracks between siloed advisors.
Institutional experience
Investment experience from top-tier firms, plus a bench of CFP®, CPA, and CFA professionals and a network of estate attorneys and insurance specialists.
High-touch & fiduciary
As fiduciaries we're bound to act in your interest — with proactive, personalized service for complex, concentrated situations.
Founded in 2014 and grown to over $1.3B in assets. Recognized as a top advisor in Washington by USA Today and named to the Inc. 5000. Recognition is not indicative of future results.
Mike Boroughs, CFA, CPA
"My father made it big in tech in the '90s — then lost most of it. Not for lack of hard work, but because no one gave him the right advice about the wealth he'd built."
Watching that as a teenager is why Mike became a CPA, then a CFA, and in 2014 co-founded Fortis on one idea: your investments, your taxes, and your estate — handled by one team, with one plan.
Mike leads the firm's investment strategy and works directly with its top-tier clients. Before Fortis, he was an assistant portfolio manager at Glacier Peak Capital — a ~$190M adviser he helped spin out of Summit Capital Group, where he was an equity analyst — and earlier an auditor at Ernst & Young, where he earned his CPA. He graduated valedictorian from the University of San Diego, and outside the office is active in his NE Seattle church community and spends time at the family cabin on Marrowstone Island.
One team
In-house tax, equity, and investment specialists in the same room.
One plan
Structured before the IPO — while valuations and the tax are still low — then built to grow with you.
Your quarterback
We coordinate your whole financial life so every decision reinforces the rest.
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