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When Sam Altman landed on the Forbes Under 30 list in 2015, OpenAI didn’t yet exist. Altman was leading a different kind of powerhouse: Y Combinator. We called him a “virtually unknown 20-something” when he was picked as Paul Graham’s successor at the startup accelerator.

A decade later, Altman is preparing for what could be one of the most consequential IPOs in tech history. Even more significant, Anthropic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX are lining up for public offerings of their own, too. OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing to go public this fall, and SpaceX is expected to debut just next week on June 12. With these IPOs on the horizon, some former and current employees—more than a dozen of which are Under 30 alumni—might be about to get really, really rich.

Collectively, these three companies could be valued at $4 trillion. To put it into context, the predicted proceeds from just these three IPOs sits at $200 billion—that’s almost as much as the $265 billion in proceeds of all 2,749 companies that went public between 1995–2000, just at the heart of the dot-com boom. (This is all assuming that SpaceX opens at the $1.8 trillion currently being touted, though some investors warn that the company is significantly overvalued.)

It’s important to note that we don’t put just any employee on the Under 30 list; they must truly have a hand in shaping their workplace. Or better yet, the tech industry at large. Take Joanne Jang, who made the list in 2025 when she was head of product at OpenAI. There she founded the Model Behavior team and worked across product development that gave a voice and personality to ChatGPT. She’s literally known as the mother of GPT-4o. This year, she left to start her own AI lab, Core Automation.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Kiang made the 30 Under 30 list in 2017 as the mission integration engineer at SpaceX. There she was responsible for overseeing the development of the human systems—or everything needed to keep astronauts alive, from the sensors monitoring CO2 and oxygen levels, to the space suits themselves—on the Crew Dragon spacecraft. This 2019 mission was the first time that a company had designed its suits fully in-house, and it was the first time that a crew launched from U.S. soil since NASA’s space shuttle program shut down in 2011.

Though equity stake has not been disclosed for many of these employees, they’re surely preparing for the results of the impending IPOs. For employees who joined SpaceX in 2017, for instance (like Kiang did), they might have gotten their equity stake when SpaceX was valued at a little over $20 billion. With the company’s jump to a potential $1.8 trillion in the upcoming IPO, that would mean that even a measly ownership stake will result in a massive payout. Or we can take Joanne Jang’s timeline into account. She joined OpenAI in 2021 when it was valued at $14 billion. Now estimated to debut somewhere between $850 billion and $1 trillion, that’s a 6,000% increase in value for any equity she holds.

Staffers at OpenAI have already started selling shares on the secondary market pre-IPO (to outside investors like hedge funds or wealthy individuals). They’ve sold an estimated $6.6 billion. But that’s causing concern among analysts who wonder why the employees think now is the time to cash out. And more than 1,000 SpaceX employees, who some estimate have a combined $20 billion in assets, have teamed up to negotiate with financial advisors and wealth managers to fight for lower advisory fees for the assets they could liquidate after the IPO, and for the ability to take out loans against their equity before the 180 days are up for most employees to be able to sell stock post-IPO (though this 180 days doesn’t apply to “certain employees and persons and friends and families of executive officers,” according to the company).

Their eagerness is understandable. If these offerings land anywhere near their projected valuations, they'll mark one of the largest employee wealth-creation events Silicon Valley has ever seen. In many ways, that's the real story.

More next week,

Alex & Zoya

Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia 2026

Meet the newest class of the Under 30 Asia list.

Calling all Under 30 Veterans

If you have previously been named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and have served (or are serving) in the armed forces, we want to hear from you. Reach out to ayork@forbes.com with the subject line: “Under 30 Veteran” and let me know what list you made, what branch you served in, and what you’re up to now.

Lister Lowdown

-Suno, the AI music generation company cofounded by Under 30 lister Martin Camacho, this week announced a $400 million Series D round that valued the startup at $5.4 billion (just seven months after it raised its last round at $2.5 billion). Forbes recently sat down with Suno CEO Mikey Shulman to discuss the controversy (and lawsuits) around AI’s role in music—and how Suno continues to grow through all the noise. Read the profile here.

-Ethan Thornton, a 2024 Under 30 lister, raised $300 million in a Series C round for his defense tech startup, Mach Industries. The Thiel fellow is out to build cheaper and faster military drones, missiles and other unmanned weapons systems, and investors have taken the bite. The round was led by Infinite Capital and Ribbit Capital, making Mach Industries a new unicorn with a $1.8 billion valuation.

-Legora, the legal AI startup founded by Under 30 lister Max Junestrand, announced this week that it has acquired AI agent maker Cadastral, which was built for the commercial real estate industry. This partnership will extend Legora’s operating system from traditional legal practices to a new industry. Legora was valued at $5.6 billion following a Series D fundraise this March. The acquisition cost was not disclosed.