Notes from the intersection of mathematics, finance & AI.
I write here when a question refuses to leave me alone. Expect proofs beside P&Ls, gradients beside gradients of a different sort, and the occasional argument that the three are one subject viewed from different rooms.
The Clash of the Titans: How 2026 Becomes the Epic Year of the AI IPO
Three S-1s. Ninety days. $240 billion of fresh equity. Anthropic in October. OpenAI in Q4. SpaceX, carrying xAI inside it like a Trojan horse with a chatbot, in summer. There has never been a quarter like this in modern equity-markets history — and inside it, three radically different theories of what an AI company is will collide. The trial that could detonate it all begins in nine days. The strangest underwriter covenant ever printed is already on the syndicate desks. By 2028, two of the three listings will look obviously correctly valued. One will look catastrophically wrong, and the bear case will be the most-cited finance textbook of the decade. This is the dispatch from the cliff edge.
All essays· 17
Reading an essay is the easy part.
Shipping the system is where the conversation gets interesting. If anything on the notebook lines up with what you're building, I work with a small number of teams at a time and am currently taking new briefs.