SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI are now worth more than every US tech company that has gone public in the last 45 years. This signals a massive shift where wealth creation is happening in private markets, locking out the average investor.

A decade ago, 88% of a tech company's value was created post-IPO. For recent IPOs, 55% of the market cap creation happened while the company was still private, fundamentally changing where investors capture growth.

Unlike a decade ago, today's most transformative, high-growth companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are choosing to remain private for longer. This trend concentrates the highest potential returns in private markets, making it difficult for public investors to 'own the future' of technology.

Companies are staying private for over a decade, allowing early investors to capture the vast majority of growth. By the time they IPO, public market participants often serve as the final buyers, or 'exit liquidity,' rather than participating in early growth.

The venue for tech value creation has dramatically shifted from public to private markets. For recent IPOs, over half of their market cap was generated while private, a stark reversal from ten years prior when 88% of value was created post-IPO.

In the 1980s, companies like Apple went public early as a fundraising necessity, allowing public investors to capture most of the growth. Today, robust private markets mean companies stay private longer, making IPOs primarily a liquidity event for insiders and VCs, with less upside left for the public.

The nature of IPOs has fundamentally changed. Historically, small, venture-backed companies went public to raise growth capital. Now, companies stay private much longer and debut as large-cap entities, altering the opportunity set and risk profile for public market investors.

Unlike early tech IPOs where public investors captured enormous gains, today's blockbuster IPOs arrive at such inflated valuations that almost all value has already been extracted by private investors, leaving minimal upside for the retail market.

By delaying IPOs, highly-valued private companies concentrate wealth among a small group of early investors. When they finally go public, regulations often compel passive funds and 401(k)s to buy in at peak valuations. This forces retail investors to become the "bag holders," assuming significant risk after most of the value has already been created.