Banker trades $4.8M Marin estate for Anthropic AI shares
A Silicon Valley tech banker is offering his $4.8 million (€4 million) estate in Marin County, California, in exchange for shares of AI firm Anthropic.
Anthropic's valuation on the secondary market has surged to $1 trillion (€853 billion), and its shares are in short supply.
The banker claims he has already received multiple offers from employees since announcing the deal.
The scramble for Anthropic's increasingly scarce shares has reached new heights in recent weeks. A Silicon Valley investment banker is now offering his fully furnished five-acre estate in Marin County—valued at $4.8 million (€4 million)—as part of a trade, complete with an infinity pool and panoramic views of the San Francisco skyline.
"If you're going fishing, you've got to put a worm on the hook," said Storm Duncan, founder and managing partner of technology investment bank Ignatious, in an interview with Business Insider (BI). "What's my alternative? To miss out?"
The offer comes at a time when Anthropic's secondary-market valuation has soared to $1 trillion (€853 billion), driven by investors eager to capitalize on the company's rapid revenue growth and the momentum behind its AI-powered coding assistant, Claude Code.
Duncan, who primarily resides in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, owns multiple properties. He deliberately chose the Marin County villa because he believes it will appeal to Anthropic employees. "It's a 20-minute drive to Anthropic's offices in the city," he explains. "No one at Anthropic is going to be interested in my property in Miami or Jackson Hole."
A Locked-Up Goldmine
With his proposal, Duncan aims to get on the radar of employees who hold shares—a fortune they can't sell until after an IPO. Since publicizing the deal, he says he has received several serious inquiries. "Some are Anthropic employees, others just invested early," Duncan notes. "I think they're serious, but it's a complex transaction."
"There are probably a lot of people sitting in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, making $400,000 (€341,000) a year with a net worth of $100 million (€85 million), but they can't access it because their shares are so illiquid. This gives them a chance to diversify."
Unconventional routes to pre-IPO shares—equity in a company before it goes public—are nothing new.
In 2005, artist David Choe opted to take Facebook stock instead of $60,000 (€52,000) for painting murals in the company's first office—a decision that reportedly netted him around $200 million (€171 million) when the social network went public in 2012. During the dot-com era, some San Francisco landlords accepted equity from startups in lieu of rent for commercial spaces.
On X, some observers dismissed Duncan's offer as a PR stunt or a sure sign of a bubble peak. Others joked that Bay Area real estate might be even more coveted than Anthropic shares.
Duncan insists the offer is genuine and that he's not seeking attention. Why not just buy shares directly? A small investor like him would never get access. "Anthropic doesn't have time for people like me," he says. "They're looking for investors who can write a $100 million (€85 million) check."
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
The alternative would be to purchase shares from early employees or investors on the secondary market—but according to Duncan, those deals are increasingly dubious. The scarcity of shares has led sellers to impose terms laden with high fees and opaque ownership structures.
Duncan already owns Anthropic shares, acquired during the 2024 funding round when securing stock was far easier. He says the decision to double down came after his firm saw impressive results following the launch of Claude Code.
"This will likely triple our productivity and cut our costs by 50 percent," he says. "When I introduced the platform in my own company, I thought: I want to be more involved here."
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