⏳ Reading Time: 6 minutesIn the prospectus for SpaceX’s Initial Public Offering (IPO), there is a clause that would make any corporate lawyer with even a modest sense of humour raise an eyebrow. The board of directors has granted Elon Musk one billion restricted shares. Those shares will vest only if two conditions are met: a market capitalisation of $7.5 trillion and “the establishment of a permanent human colony on Mars with at least one million inhabitants.” The word “Mars” appears 63 times in the filing, more often than “net income.”
For ordinary investors lacking such imagination, it is difficult not to smile. But perhaps that is precisely why we read about the IPO in newspapers while Musk is the richest man in the world. After all, the very concept of finance was born from humanity’s ability to tell stories about distant worlds, often somewhere between geography and science fiction.
If today’s investors seem obsessed with climbing aboard the Artificial Intelligence bandwagon, a few centuries ago the irresistible dream was gold. Sir Walter Raleigh, Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite courtier, became obsessed with El Dorado, the legendary city of gold that indigenous accounts claimed lay hidden somewhere in the forests of Venezuela. In 1595, he set sail with five ships and one hundred “gentleman adventurers.” He found nothing.
