Anthropic’s IPO (which is when it sells shares to the public and has its market valuation determined by trading on a stock market) will be a seismic event in modern financial history, maybe in all of human history.

A company – seven people with an idea – came together in 2021. Less than six years later they are about to sell shares in that company at a valuation of something like $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion.

Adjust for every possible factor you want: does any previous commercial endeavour come close to this?

I’m intrigued by the idea that Anthropic is the ultimate evolution of this weird, intangible concept called a “company”, which was brought into the world by investors in seafaring enterprises hoping to profit from plundering resources on the other side of the world in the 1500s.

Does Anthropic represent the endpoint, the apex, the ultimate manifestation of what a “company” is? Will we look back one day and consider what comes after it some new form with a new label?

Regular readers will know that I’m sceptical about the likelihood of a decent return on eye-watering sums spent on capital expenditure to build AI – not about AI’s potential.

To quote Bill Gates in his recent appearance on Decoder with Nilay Patel, it may usher in an “era of true abundance” while also being “by far the most dangerous technology ever invented.”

I’m excited about the IPO because once Anthropic shares are available to buy and sell freely on the stock market, we’ll finally get to price the business opportunity properly.

So far, its valuation has been based on a handful of private investors foaming at the mouth with FOMO. Let’s see what happens once Anthropic is plugged into the raucous bazaar that is the stock market.