The political implications of the coming AI IPOs are somehow still underappreciated Historically, each wave of wealth (railroads and steel, oil, finance, early tech, etc) was accompanied by a new class of people for whom politics was a way to compete for status and finance their convictions AI is likely to follow the same path. If the major labs go public over the next year or so, their founders and early employees will gain access to personal liquidity extraordinary in both its breadth (the number of employees) and depth (the absolute size of the wealth). Beyond simply financing candidates, they will be sustaining institutions and underwriting political projects for decades There need not be a coherent set of “AI politics” for this to matter (in fact, I doubt there is one!). These people can disagree profoundly and politics will still proactively warp itself in their direction. Whether you welcome this is a separate question. But the smart players in DC are building these relationships already