Investor Joe Terranova says one public stock is a back door way to play the booming fortunes of private Anthropic

Zoom is being positioned as an indirect way to gain exposure to Anthropic, which is reportedly preparing for an IPO as early as this fall. Analysts estimate Zoom's Anthropic stake could be worth roughly $1.1B to $3.4B, while some estimates place it even higher at $2B to $4B, creating potential upside for Zoom shares. The article is constructive for Zoom and Anthropic sentiment, but the immediate market impact is likely limited.

Analysis

The clean read is that Zoom is no longer just a video-communications recovery story; it has become a listed proxy for private AI scarcity value. That matters because the market tends to underwrite “embedded option” assets only when a clear monetization path exists, and an Anthropic IPO is the most visible catalyst that can force a repricing of that option in weeks rather than years. The second-order effect is that any incremental strength in Anthropic-related sentiment can improve Zoom’s multiple even without material operating acceleration in the core business.

The more interesting point is that this exposure could matter more than the headline stake size suggests. If investors start treating Zoom as a liquid AI adjacency trade, the stock can de-couple from its slow-growth software fundamentals and trade on narrative velocity, similar to prior situations where balance-sheet or venture holdings drove share price behavior. That creates a setup where upside comes from multiple expansion, not earnings revisions, which can be swift but fragile.

The main risk is timing: an IPO can be delayed, priced below the latest private marks, or hit a cold market that forces a discount instead of a premium. In that scenario, the market likely reverts to valuing Zoom on its underlying growth and cash-flow profile, capping the rerating. Over a 1-3 month horizon, the trade is more about sentiment and event optionality; over 6-12 months, the key is whether investors believe Zoom can continuously manufacture AI-relevance rather than one-off exposure.

Contrarian takeaway: the crowd may be buying the wrong AI beneficiary if it focuses only on the obvious private-market winner. If Anthropic becomes public, the better risk-adjusted trade may be to own the liquid proxy before the event and then monetize the move into the IPO window, because post-listing, the scarcity premium can migrate away from Zoom quickly. The miss in consensus is assuming the catalyst is purely bullish for Zoom; in reality, a strong Anthropic IPO could also reduce the need to own the proxy at all.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Long ZM into the next 4-8 weeks as an event-driven AI proxy; target a 10-15% rerating on Anthropic IPO headlines, with a hard stop if the IPO window slips or private-market enthusiasm cools.
• Buy ZM call spreads 2-3 months out to capture upside from a repricing of the Anthropic option while limiting capital at risk; best if implied volatility remains below realized event volatility.
• Trim into strength on any ZM rally tied to Anthropic filing/roadshow rumors; the trade is narrative-driven and likely to mean-revert once the market starts pricing the IPO independently.
• Avoid chasing VRTS here: no direct positive read-through and no comparable embedded AI optionality, so relative value favors being long ZM versus a broader software basket rather than rotating into non-exposed names.