Anthropic's initial public offering could arrive as early as next month, and wealth managers report a surge of inquiries from clients holding outsized positions in artificial intelligence companies. Whether the exposure comes from employment, early-stage investing, or private-market funds, advisors say the window for meaningful planning is closing fast. The consensus: the work that protects a windfall must happen before the opening bell, not after.
Concentration risk hides behind strong fundamentals
Cameron Rogers, a partner at Angeles Wealth Management, says clients often assume a winning stock will keep climbing. But data from J.P. Morgan's recent concentrated stock study suggests otherwise. The firms that suffered catastrophic declines—defined as a 70% or greater drop from peak with no recovery—generally looked solid at their highs: more than half were profitable, most carried modest debt and reasonable valuations, and analysts rated them "strong buy."
"You can't count on seeing the fall coming," Rogers said. "So the first conversation isn't about selling; it's about deciding ahead of time how much of your family's future you're comfortable resting on one name, then building a rules-based approach—like a 10b5-1 plan, staged selling, or hedging—so emotion doesn't drive the decision." She notes that clients who navigate this well often remain fans of the company but still right-size their position.
Rogers also points out that waiting until after an IPO is no longer the norm, since companies stay private longer and liquidity often arrives earlier through company-run tender offers. "Pre-wealth event is the window to move low-basis shares into a trust or gifting vehicle, start the clock on long-term capital gains, and have a diversification plan drafted. Almost all of it gets harder once a wealth event is triggered," she said.
Tax and lock-up planning can't wait for the bell
Gabriel Shahin, founder and principal at Falcon Wealth, warns that private-market valuations for AI firms can be volatile. "Paper wealth isn't real cash until it's monetized," he said. "The biggest mistake is treating expected IPO proceeds as a guaranteed slam dunk. You need to manage concentration risk early and plan for the potential tax problem before the liquidity event happens." If clients wait until after trading begins, they may face a huge tax bill on paper gains or, worse, be stuck holding an over-concentrated position if the market swings during the lock-up period.
For clients expecting eight- or nine-figure paydays, Shahin recommends estate planning, valuation discounts, and trust structures well in advance, plus a look at private secondary markets if company rules allow. "The risk of waiting until after the IPO is that you're stuck in a standard 180-day lock-up period where you can't sell, leaving you fully exposed to public market fluctuations while the clock ticks down," he said.
Alex Shahidi, co-CIO and senior managing director at Evoke, a division of MAI Capital Management, frames the IPO as a starting point, not a finish line. "Too often, investors mistake a successful investment for a diversified portfolio and allow a single position to dominate their financial future," he said. "A common mistake is letting recent success create overconfidence, causing investors to underestimate concentration risk and delay difficult decisions. The goal should not be to stay rich on paper, but to convert concentrated wealth into resilient wealth."
For clients without direct exposure to Anthropic or OpenAI but caught up in the broader AI boom, Rogers advises looking past the headline names to where the technology is actually transforming other industries. "That's where the durable opportunity lives: companies, often in less glamorous corners, that are using AI to fundamentally change their cost structure, products, or competitive position, but aren't yet priced as 'AI stocks,'" she said.
Shahin points clients toward established, cash-generating companies such as Google, Nvidia, Meta, Oracle, or SpaceX for AI exposure without fresh-IPO risk, noting the concentration risk already building in portfolios tied to the AI trade. Shahidi cautions against chasing a single winner: "The goal is not to identify one winner but to build a portfolio that can participate if AI succeeds while remaining resilient if current expectations prove too optimistic."
As the IPO window narrows, advisors stress that the time to act is now. For more on the broader AI market's risks, see this ECB warning and the split on IPO timing. Also, equity grants alone may not secure retirement for startup workers, and Anthropic's advisor tools are already making inroads.
