Wall Street loves to sell you a story: “Just buy quality stocks and hold them forever.”
That’s adorable.
Because while regular investors fight over crumbs in the public market, the real wealth machine runs behind the curtain—in what I call the Hidden Stock Market: private companies, late-stage rounds, secondary share sales, and pre-IPO deals where the biggest gains happen before the ticker symbol ever exists.
And if you want a clean “pain vs. power” example, here it is:
Anthropic (private AI): valuation exploded from roughly $4.1B (early 2023) to $183B (Sept 2025). Crunchbase News+1
Nike (NKE): stock went from $110.93 (Dec 30, 2022 close) to about $61.12 today (Dec 30, 2025). StatMuse
Same 3-year window. Two completely different worlds.
What “Hidden Stock Market” Really Means (and why it’s rigged in plain sight)
Let’s be blunt:
The massive returns—the “make your life” returns—usually happen privately.
By the time a company IPOs, the early investors already captured the ridiculous multiple.
Regular investors get access when the story is polished, the bankers are involved, and the easy upside is gone.
The hidden market is where:
Venture capital and growth funds buy the “next decade” at yesterday’s price
Employees and early investors sell in secondary markets
Institutions get allocations normal investors can’t touch
And that’s why the rich keep getting richer:
They get the first bite.
They get the cheapest shares.
They get the longest runway.
Anthropic: The Kind of Wealth Creation the Public Market Can’t Compete With
Anthropic is one of the defining AI companies of this era—Claude, enterprise AI, real adoption—and it’s been vacuuming up capital at valuations that make the public market look slow.
Here are two valuation “checkpoints” that matter:
~$4.1B valuation in early 2023 fundraising chatter (reported around March 2023). Crunchbase News
$183B post-money valuation after its Series F announced September 2025. anthropic.com+1
That’s not a “nice gain.” That’s a wealth event.
If you put $10,000 into Anthropic ~3 years ago…
Using valuation growth as a simple proxy:
Valuation multiple: $183B / $4.1B ≈ 44.6x
$10,000 × 44.6 ≈ $446,000
That’s the kind of move that changes your options account, your house, your freedom.
But here’s the part the public never understands:
Even if public stocks are “up,” they rarely deliver that kind of compressed multiple in that short a time. Not consistently. Not without insane risk. Not without leverage.
Now Compare That To Nike: The Public Market “Safe” Stock That Quietly Wrecked You
Nike is iconic. Great brand. Household name.
And in the public market, that doesn’t mean a damn thing if the stock gets repriced.
Nike closed $110.93 on Dec 30, 2022. StatMuse
Nike trades about $61.12 on Dec 30, 2025 (today).
If you put $10,000 into NKE at the same time…
$10,000 × (61.12 / 110.93) ≈ $5,510
Loss ≈ -$4,490 (about -45%)
So while Anthropic hypothetically turns $10K into $446K, Nike turns $10K into $5.5K.
That’s the difference between:
owning the future vs.
owning a logo
The Brutal Truth: Public Stocks Are The “Late Stage” Of The Wealth Game
Public markets are loud, liquid, and accessible—which is exactly why the biggest edge often isn’t there anymore.
Public stocks are:
priced every second
reactionary to rates, earnings, headlines
constantly arbitraged
Private markets are:
negotiated
relationship-driven
access-controlled
and when you hit the right wave (like AI), the valuations can compound violently fast
That’s why the wealthy hunt private deals:
they want asymmetric outcomes
they want multiple expansion
they want the pre-IPO rocket fuel
And most people never get a shot because they’re not in the room.
Why The Rich Keep Getting Richer (In Bullets, Because It’s Not Complicated)
Access: the best deals are gated—funds, networks, secondaries.
Time: they can hold illiquid assets longer without needing cash.
Information: they see the cap tables, the rounds, the pipelines.
Allocation: they get size in winners early.
Compounding: one 40x winner erases ten “meh” outcomes.
Meanwhile, the average investor is told:
“Buy the dip.”
“Hold forever.”
“Dollar-cost average into index funds.”
That’s fine… if your goal is average.
But if your goal is to build real wealth, you need exposure to the wealth engine.
Reality Check (Important): This Is A Simplified Example
I’m not going to sell you fantasy math without the fine print:
Private investing has dilution, terms, preferences, and liquidity risk
You often can’t just “buy $10K” of a private company the way you buy NKE
Access can require accreditation, funds, or secondary marketplaces
Valuation growth ≠ guaranteed cash-out (until liquidity happens)
But even with those caveats, the point stands:
The largest wealth creation in modern markets tends to happen before the IPO.
And Anthropic’s valuation trajectory is exactly what that looks like. anthropic.com+1
If you’re only playing the public market, you’re often:
late
competing with machines
buying after the easy upside
and praying the next earnings call doesn’t punch you in the mouth
Anthropic is a case study in how the Hidden Stock Market rewards early positioning—while “safe” public names can still bleed you out for years.
That’s why the rich keep getting richer. They don’t just buy stocks. They buy access.
