How to make $1b in 10 days

Getting rich fast is the best way to get rich

Anthropic just filed their S-1 and will go public soon. The company is 2,103 days old (5 years and 9 months).

The speed of wealth creation they’ve had is astounding.

Assuming they go public around a $2 trillion market cap:

~1,000 employees will be worth $100 million+. There are ~11,000 Americans with $100 million in investable assets. Roughly 1 in 12 Americans with $100 million (liquid) will be from Anthropic.
The 7 co-founders will make $28 billion each. That’s $13 million a day of net worth created per founder, every day, for 5 years.
Revenue went from $41 million in 2023 to ~$50 billion in 2026.

I don’t think every founder needs to move fast. Do what you want. But if you do…the standard has been set (and I do think there is a correlation between how fast you move and how successful you’ll become).

So, how fast is fast enough? Well, a billionaire CEO recently told me: “If you even have time to think about it, you’re moving too slow” (link)

Another time I asked a different billionaire CEO (Ramp) how old his company is. He said “2,310 days.”

“Hey Rainman,” I said, “what’s up with the exact day bit?”

“We needed to count the days to move at incredible velocity and simply be designed to ship things faster. And so today we’re 2,310 days old.”

Speed is one of the few attributes that people who “handle their business” have in common. Go forth, young man.

Things you should know:

Vanguard predicts 4.8% to 6.8% for the next decade (tweet): Vanguard predicts US stocks will grow 4.8% to 6.8% over the next 10 years, up from 4.2% to 6.2% in its last quarterly forecast. For the first time ever, I sold some of my index funds. My portfolio was 95% index funds, 5% bonds. I’m rebalancing to an 80% equities, 20% bond mix regardless of the market because I like 80/20. But I think there will be more pullbacks in the next 3 months. For virtually everyone reading this: invest in index funds…don’t stock pick. You will not beat the index.
The oldest dating rule there is (tweet): “Nothing disgusts her more in a man than indecision, fear, doubt, hesitation, and reserve.” Good advice on how to be a man.
Gyms are going to change very soon (tweet): I’ve been tracking this new device that gym nerds are raving about. It’s a few years old and will revolutionize gyms and change how they look. It’s a device the size of a shoe, weighs 13 pounds, and produces 500 pounds of resistance so you don’t need barbells anymore. And you can adjust every part of the resistance curve. It’s still very early, but lots of opportunity here. Barbells and machines will go away.
The Rise of the Lo Lifes (article): In 1988 a Brooklyn shoplifting crew called Lo Lifes had one mission: get as much Polo Ralph Lauren as possible…and do it by stealing it. A dozen kids started doing it and it made Ralph Lauren popular in Black culture. Ralph Lauren is worth studying because it’s the only brand I can think of that appeals to and is respected equally by rich people, poor people, white people, and Black people…everyone. I love RL.
The world’s most valuable DM (article): The founder of Anthropic, at the time a journalist at Bloomberg, to his friends saying that he’s quitting journalism to learn about AI. A few years later, he founded Anthropic and is now worth $28 billion.
Pinealon is the next peptide everyone’s going to be talking about (tweet): Back on April 1, 2025, Andrew Huberman replied to a Tim Urban post and said that if you take pinealon 30 minutes before bed, without eating in the two hours before, you can sleep 6 hours and wake up “like a kid on Xmas morning. Just saying.” Almost nobody noticed. Eighteen months later, a biohacker account reposted that screenshot and it got 1.3 million views and 12,667 bookmarks. That many bookmarks, to me, means people are planning to buy it. Pinealon is a tiny peptide, just three amino acids, that comes as a pill. Supporters say it helps with sleep, memory and focus. But…there’s no controlled human trial on sleep, and nearly all the research comes from the one Russian lab that invented it. My bet is it gets big anyway.

The greatest thing my parents ever gave me

In 2011, I was a junior in college and had heard about an early stage company called Airbed and Breakfast (now called Airbnb).

I cold emailed the founder explaining why he should give me a job.

He asked if I lived in the Bay Area and if I would want to interview for a position. I didn’t even know what the Bay Area meant.

I was living in Nashville, Tennessee at the time and had never been to California. But I said yes. I flew there Monday and got the job.

I came back to Nashville and called my parents (who lived in Missouri). I told them I was moving to SF in a few weeks to join a startup.

They didn’t even know what a startup was (me either, really)! They thought it was a Ponzi scheme. And I hadn’t gotten a diploma yet (I eventually got it 6 months later).

Still, they said: alright, we’ll come down and help you pack.

Well, while they were helping me pack, we got a call from Airbnb.

I had lied on the application. I said I didn’t have a misdemeanor. I did. A recent DUI (I’m now sober). Airbnb found out.

So, literally the night before my flight, while out to eat with my parents, Airbnb called. “You’re supposed to start next week…but we’re rescinding our offer. You lied.”

It was awful! But very fair of them.

Yet, my parents encouraged me to go to SF and make something happen.

They gave me ~$5,000 as a gift (they let me sell the F-150 truck they gave me) and told me they knew I’d figure it out. I didn’t have a place to live or a job. They drove me to the airport and told me to make it happen.

Soon after, I started a company that I eventually sold for tens of millions of dollars.

In my opinion, being emotionally supportive of your friends and family is one of the greatest gifts that you could ever give them. When starting anything feels impossible, just telling someone “I believe in you. You can do it” can meaningfully change the outcome.

By the way: a few years ago, I went to MrBeast’s house for a founder retreat. Joe Gebbia, the founder of Airbnb who interviewed me, came too. Was fun to see him again. He’s about $10 billion richer than me. But hey, we still ended up in the same place.

I love you,

Sam