Keith Rabois

SpaceX may be an extraordinary company and still be an unattractive purchase at an $800 billion valuation. Rory O’Driscoll described two exceptional businesses—rockets and Starlink—but roughly $15 billion of revenue growing about 30% leaves it above 40x run-rate revenue, with “a lot of non-obvious math” and an Elon premium embedded. His clean comparison: Anthropic could command roughly 20–25x while growing 300%, versus SpaceX at roughly 40x growing 20–30%; “it is possible to lose money on a great company.”

A single blockbuster listing could make 2026 a record IPO year without resolving the wider venture-liquidity deficit. Rory’s illustrative marks for SpaceX, Anthropic, and Databricks total $1.4 trillion; if VCs own slightly under half, roughly $700 billion could return against an estimated $2.8–$2.9 trillion of private venture value. Jason Lemkin predicts Anthropic and Databricks will list in the second half of 2026 if markets hold, while Rory warns that even enormously successful IPOs could price below their last private rounds.

Netflix’s proposed $82.7 billion Warner Bros. Discovery deal is the moment the internet-native distributor starts consuming the studios it already defeated. A roughly $470 billion Netflix can put nearly $100 billion on the table with less than 20% dilution, while sub-$20 billion Paramount needs debt and outside capital to make a similarly sized bid. Regulatory, political, and Hollywood opposition remain substantial, especially because Netflix could become the dominant buyer of creative work.

Tiger Global’s smaller, concentrated fund reflects a reset after 2021, while Naveen’s $500 million seed at a $5 billion valuation reflects the premium attached to repeat success. Tiger made nine deals this year versus more than 100 in 2021 and is committing 20%, roughly $400 million, of its own capital; Rory called money “a great truth serum.” Rory could write Naveen’s investment memo—“Once you’re lucky, twice you’re good”—but not yet demonstrate a clear $25 billion outcome. Earlier, cheaper rounds can also make a headline seed valuation different from the entry prices of early investors.

Harvey’s $8 billion valuation works only if exceptional growth remains durable and the company expands beyond legal AI. Reported discussion centered on roughly $150 million ARR, 300% growth, 98% logo retention, and 170% NRR. Jason’s case is to back an outlier that grew from $50 million to $150 million and could approach $450 million; Rory’s concern is whether the deceleration path is 10x to 6x to 3x or 10x to 3x to 2x. Harvey must also defend against model improvement and expand into labor or other professional services.

AI application moats remain provisional because model improvements can strengthen today’s leaders or invalidate their architectures. Harry emphasized implementation, workflow integration, and customer relationships; Jason’s counterexample was a step-function improvement in deep reasoning, from minutes to seconds. Rory’s middle ground was that domain workflows matter, but “product-market fit is a rolling feast,” requiring application companies to evaluate every new model immediately. LLMs can be easy to swap without necessarily becoming bad businesses: applications can route among several model APIs in real time, although Rory still expects high fixed costs to reduce the field to perhaps three or four viable providers. The Chinese open-source debate added a separate legal and security question: Andreessen’s 80% figure was described as inaccurate, while Jason and Rory agreed that cost, functionality, and government restrictions must be evaluated separately.

ChatGPT’s habit and memory moat is valuable but contested. Jason said users could move to Google within days if ChatGPT disappeared; Rory argued that memory, habit, product quality, and roughly 800 million users would create a meaningful void, using the test: “If you lost it today, would you go out and buy another one tomorrow morning?” OpenAI’s “code red” was framed as a need to concentrate on healthcare, codecs, and the consumer product.

Airwallex’s $8 billion round looks like a valuation dislocation, but geopolitical exposure has become part of the asset. At roughly $1 billion of revenue, Airwallex is priced at a quarter of comparable-revenue Ramp’s $32 billion mark; Rory and Harry attributed much of that gap to an Asia discount while distinguishing the Australian company from a Chinese-owned business. Rory would require a plan to eliminate its China operating exposure; Jason argued that 8x revenue is attractive and great founders should be trusted to resolve the risk.

Prediction markets may face an insider-trading and manipulation reckoning. Kalshi’s $11 billion mark and Polymarket’s $13 billion mark prompted discussion of anonymous traders apparently winning millions with potentially privileged information. Rory also warned about controllable sports micro-bets and predicted congressional scrutiny in three or four years.

🔗 Original source & video: 20VC OGs: SpaceX Valued at $800BN & Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Price | Airwallex Raises $330M and The Battle with Keith Rabois | Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers | IPO Market Predictions for 2026: Anthropic, Stripe, Databricks and SpaceX