For most people, owning a home is among life’s greatest milestones — especially in the Bay Area. For Storm Duncan, though, it is leverage to get in on the AI arms race. 

An investment banker based in Miami, Duncan owns a four-bedroom, five-bathroom ranch home perched on a grassy knoll in Mill Valley’s Strawberry neighborhood. The house, at 114 Inez Place (opens in new tab), has an infinity pool, hot tub, putting green, and panoramic views of the bay, Mount Tamalpais, and San Francisco. It is a stone’s throw from the 101 freeway and a short drive to downtown Mill Valley. Along with an abutting parcel also owned by Duncan, the property makes up roughly 13 acres. While it isn’t officially on the market, this week, he created a LinkedIn profile (opens in new tab) for his house (a totally normal thing to do!) and proposed a unique arrangement:

“I own a 14-acre estate in Mill Valley, CA,” Duncan’s post (opens in new tab) read, exaggerating slightly. “And would like to exchange the property for Anthropic equity.” 

Duncan admits his gambit is highly speculative, but he hopes it might appeal to a young Anthropic employee living on an engineer’s salary — a “diversification play,” as he called it. 

“I’m under-concentrated in AI investments relative to the importance of AI in the future, and over-concentrated in real estate,” he told The Standard. “My perspective is that someone that owns Anthropic stock is probably in the exact opposite scenario.”

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Duncan offers to cover all closing costs and to structure the deal as a private transaction, pitching it as a way for an Anthropic shareholder to acquire a home without selling their stock outright. He believes the arrangement would offer tax advantages and allow the seller to retain some upside in their shares during any lockup period. By any measure, it’s an unusually bespoke offer that underscores just how far this would be from a typical home sale. 

Duncan said the number of shares would be negotiated with a buyer, but he is basing his expectations on recent investment rounds (opens in new tab) that value Anthropic at around $800 billion.

Duncan lived in the Bay Area from 1996 until “COVID, basically,” when he packed up and moved to Florida, preferring its lax pandemic protocols. The Strawberry house is currently occupied by a “high-profile VC” whom he declined to name. “I think he’ll be a little bit bummed if it sells,” he said. 

Duncan is not the first owner of the home to have lofty ambitions. The previous owner first listed the place in 2016 for $10.8 million — but ended up selling to Duncan in 2019 for $4.75 million, according to public records.

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Carey Condey, who manages a Compass team in Marin, said that in 25 years of working as a real estate agent, “I’ve never heard of something like this.”

The Standard was unable to find another instance of a Bay Area resident looking to trade real estate for equity in an AI company. 

But the idea echoes some recent real-estate-for-crypto deals. Milo, a Miami-based company that offers home loans to crypto consumers, allows clients to leverage assets like bitcoin without selling them. CEO Josip Rupena said the appeal is largely about taxes and timing: Buyers can defer capital gains while maintaining exposure to assets they expect to keep appreciating. “The moment they sell, they lose the future upside,” he said, claiming that his company has facilitated more than $100 million in crypto-backed mortgages, many in Southern California. 

Duncan said he’s had some “very thoughtful, very engaged” conversations with Anthropic shareholders, but hasn’t yet secured a buyer. He recognizes that homeownership isn’t just about money; it requires matching a person to their ideal home and location. “By nature, I’m optimistic,” he said.