I Missed SpaceX and Claude

In the last five years, I had multiple chances to invest in SpaceX and Anthropic, the company behind Claude. I passed each time.

This month, SpaceX went public at roughly a $1.8 trillion valuation. Within days, it was worth more than $2 trillion. And Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is already within shouting distance of a trillion-dollar outcome. So by the math of the world, I literally left a fortune on the table.

There is a voice inside me that does not want to let that go. I know it well. It is the older version of me, the one who built everything from nothing, who learned to survive by counting what was won and what was lost. It says, “You missed it, bro. You should have invested, you idiot. Look at how much more we would have had now. You could have built the next thing with that cash.”

For a long time I would have called that voice me. Today I am not so sure.

Because there is another voice now. A quieter one. It does not argue with the first. It just asks a different question.

What is all of this for?

Why are we doing any of it?

Do we really need any more?

And it notices, gently, that I already have everything I once prayed for.

I used to think of these as two people, an old me and a new me at war. That framing is wrong. It is all just me. It’s all Shahzil.

The one who hustled and the one who is learning to let go are the same person, and the one who hustled is the reason I am still standing. So I have stopped trying to forget him. I have started to love him instead. He kept us alive. He earned his place. He’s a GOAT.

What is actually new is not a side winning. It is the part of me that can sit back and watch both, the old and the new. The one who observes. In the Gita, this is the witness - the part of you that is not the wanting, but the one that notices the wanting. I am only beginning to understand how much freedom lives in that one sentence.

And from that seat, you can finally see the machine for what it is. The matrix.

Because here is what I keep marveling at: look how strong the pull is. You can feel, all the way down, that you have enough, that you do not need more, and still a current rises in you that says, “but you could have more, so why the hell not?” That current does not care that you are at peace. It is built to keep you reaching. That is the trap. Not the money. The reaching.

I do not think the work is to escape it. I am not sure I want to. The work is to know it is there. To feel the pull and not be moved by it. To let the old voice speak its piece, thank it, and stay seated with a smile.

“Fear is the mind killer,” the Dune line goes. I have come to believe wanting is too, when it runs you without your knowing. The way out was never more. It was being able to watch the part of me that always wants more, and love it anyway.

I missed SpaceX. I missed Anthropic. I would have been richer, materially.

But I have the whole universe inside me. And somehow, that feels richer than anything I missed.