▶ 2:04 · $NVDA · OpenAI & SpaceX S1 Drops | Layoffs at Cloudflare & ClickUp | OpenRouter & Polsia Raise Mega Rounds

episode briefing

OpenAI & SpaceX S1 Drops | Layoffs at Cloudflare & ClickUp | OpenRouter & Polsia Raise Mega Rounds

2026-05-28 · 18 company · 7 thematic

sentiment

7 bull5 bear6 neu

speakers

Founder of SaaStr, a community and media platform for B2B software founders and executives. He is an early-stage investor and a frequent commentator on SaaS growth and go-to-market strategy.

rory o'driscoll

Rory O'Driscoll is a partner at Scale Venture Partners, a late-stage venture firm. He references Scale's portfolio (Linear, DataBricks, HubSpot, Salesforce, Palantir) and fund dynamics. He previously invested in Anthropic (2021) and tracks AI infrastructure closely.

roy

Roy contributes perspectives on IPO market dynamics, capital pool constraints, and strategic positioning of AI companies going public. He focuses on investor demand and market structure.

harry stebbings

Founder of 20VC (The Twenty Minute VC), one of the most popular venture-capital podcasts, and its associated fund.

quote

“It's not the 81 billion in revenue, which is pretty damn compelling. It's the 50some billion in profits which makes it the most profitable company on the planet... a year and a half ago it was a credible question to ask is this capex thing…”

—rory o'driscoll

episode shorts · 4

Why The SpaceX S-1 Makes No Sense

The SpaceX IPO Is a Starlink Bet

OpenAI vs Anthropic

Is OpenAI Rushing Its IPO?

now playing · $NVDA

$NVDA···bullish· high· posrory o'driscoll

Nvidia prints $81.6B quarter with $56B profit, stock flat as market digests AI capex sustainability

Nvidia is the most profitable company on the planet at $200B+ annualized profit run-rate, with 80% revenue growth and mid-20s PE; the market has already priced in the AI capex boo…

$NVDA···neutral· high· posjason lemkin

Nvidia at 7% of S&P 500 means every American is an AI investor whether they know it

Nvidia's 7% index weight makes it a systemic risk factor; the market demands beat-raise-accelerate each quarter, so flat post-earnings is actually a sign of strength given extreme…

$MSFT···neutral· lowjason lemkin

Microsoft allegedly moving off Anthropic Opus due to cost — signals enterprise price sensitivity

Reported Microsoft shift from Anthropic Opus to cheaper alternatives suggests even hyperscalers are price-sensitive; could foreshadow broader enterprise pushback on premium model…

$UBER···bearish· mediumjason lemkin

Uber COO says Anthropic credits exhausted in 4 months with unmeasurable ROI — enterprise AI skepticism emerging

Uber's COO (a 'bean counter' per Rory) reports spending annual Anthropic allocation in 4 months without measurable productivity gains; signals bifurcation where high-margin, non-f…

$DASH···bullish· mediumrory o'driscoll

DoorDash founder-led aggression contrasts Uber: 'we make so much more money on AI we just justify token savings with engineering savings'

Founder-led DoorDash reports clear AI ROI (engineering savings fund token spend) vs Uber's skepticism; if DoorDash maintains aggression while Uber pulls back, it validates bifurca…

$ANTHROPICbullish· high· posrory o'driscoll

Anthropic laps OpenAI on revenue growth and profitability, reaching $5B Q1 ARR with 70% gross margins

Anthropic grew Q1 revenue to $5B (matching all of 2024) while expanding gross margins from 38% to 70% and projecting operating profit in Q2; at this trajectory it will overtake Op…

$ANTHROPICbearish· mediumrory o'driscoll

Anthropic's premium pricing at 2x OpenAI creates bear case if enterprise ROI scrutiny intensifies

Anthropic charges 2x OpenAI for a premium product; if half of enterprise buyers conclude ROI isn't there (per Uber COO), Anthropic must either cut prices or lose share, threatenin…

$GOOGL···bearish· lowrory o'driscoll

Google's Gemini distracted by consumer focus and poor productization — lost enterprise to Anthropic

Despite 'amazing raw tech', Google failed to productize for enterprise while Anthropic stole the show; OpenAI distracted by consumer, Google by execution — creating Anthropic's wi…

$OPENAIbullish· highrory o'driscoll

OpenAI forced to IPO before Anthropic goes public to avoid looking like a smaller, slower, unprofitable follower

OpenAI's confidential S1 filing is a strategic necessity: Anthropic is on track to surpass OpenAI in revenue, growth rate, and profitability within 2-3 quarters; going public firs…

$CBRS···neutral· lowroy

Cerebras IPO maximally oversubscribed, priced at ceiling — thin investor pool for AI IPOs

Cerebras priced at highest possible without SEC refiling, showing intense but narrow demand; suggests OpenAI/SpaceX/Anthropic IPOs may compete for same limited capital pool.

$SPCX···bearish· highrory o'driscoll

SpaceX S1 reveals $2T+ valuation driven by Elon premium, not fundamentals; Starlink is the real asset

Sum-of-parts valuation (launch + Starlink + X.AI data center) falls far short of proposed $2T+ valuation; the gap is entirely the 'Elon premium' (cf. Tesla at 6x fundamental value…

$TSLA···neutral· mediumrory o'driscoll

Tesla at 6x fundamental value sets precedent for Elon premium — SpaceX valuation follows same logic

Tesla trades at ~6x DCF value ($200B fundamental vs $1.2T market cap); SpaceX's $2T+ valuation implies similar Elon premium. If Elon can replicate Tesla's manufacturing efficiency…

$CRWV···neutral· mediumrory o'driscoll

SpaceX's X.AI is essentially CoreWeave with better engineering; neocloud multiples imply <$100B valuation

X.AI's $1.25B/month Anthropic deal yields high cash-on-cash return on $12-19B capex, but applying CoreWeave multiples values the neocloud business under $100B — a fraction of Spac…

$SPCX···neutral· mediumrory o'driscoll

SpaceX's data-center-in-space narrative is the only path to $2T valuation, contingent on Jensen's $3T capex and ROI

The coherence of SpaceX's conglomerate (launch + Starlink + X.AI + Twitter) depends entirely on data centers in space becoming real; this requires Jensen's $3T/year capex to mater…

$PULSIAbearish· lowharry stebbings

Pulsia ('AI slop') raises $30-40M at $250M — peak AI hype signal or legitimate solo-founder productivity tool?

Single-founder company with aggressive spam marketing raises at $250M; product demos well but demands credit card before value delivery — a red flag for AI tooling. Could be 'Molb…

$OPENROUTERbullish· mediumrory o'driscoll

OpenRouter raises $150M at $1.3B as model-switching layer for cost-optimized agent inference

OpenRouter lets enterprises route queries to cheapest adequate model (50+ hosted); as token spend hits $300M+ and triggers layoffs (per Uber), cost optimization becomes critical —…

$EXAbullish· high· posjason lemkin

Exa raises at $2.2B as 'Google for agents' — core infrastructure for agentic web search

Exa provides structured web search that agents need (they don't use Google); it's a derivative bet on agent proliferation, with potential for multi-player market (like AWS/GCP) ra…

$CRM···bullish· high· posrory o'driscoll

Vibe-coded CRM replacement is rage-bait, not a real threat — Salesforce moat is integrations and Agentforce

Building custom CRM on Postgres ignores 10 external agent connectors, Agentforce, and thousands of integrations; only viable for extreme vertical focus with small teams. Not a top…

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