Market Analysis Stock Picks Market Insight Crypto Stocks to Buy Hot Stocks The biggest AI fortunes may be made before a company ever goes public. Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). Editor’s Note: Most people think the biggest fortunes in technology are made after a company goes public. My InvestorPlace colleague Luke Lango believes that assumption is becoming increasingly outdated. In today’s guest essay, he looks back at some of Silicon Valley’s most successful early investments – from Fairchild Semiconductor to Google to Anthropic – to explain why the biggest opportunities often appear long before Wall Street takes notice. Then he’ll share the framework he’s using to identify the next wave of AI opportunities during a free online event on Thursday, July 30, at 1 p.m.

Reserve your seat here. Back in 1957, eight young engineers working under William Shockley found the co-inventor of the transistor impossible to work for. So, they left the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, California, and never looked back. The eight quickly figured out that no institution or company would support them. Back then, the suburbs and farmland south of San Francisco and north of San Jose wasn’t exactly “Silicon Valley” yet. The budding tech firms in the region weren’t quite ready to invest in unproven ideas.