Healdsburg Homeowner Seeks Anthropic Stock for Home

As Anthropic officially moves forward with an initial public offering, one Wine Country resident is looking to sell his estate in exchange for stock in the artificial intelligence giant.

Tech entrepreneur Vijay Chattha has listed his newly remodeled three-bedroom manse at 10936 Eastside Road in the Healdsburg area for $2.5 million in a traditional transaction, or $2 million worth of Anthropic stock instead, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The estate comes complete with a bocce court and a new pool.

Chattha is only accepting Anthropic stock and not OpenAI because he believes in the company and its Claude chatbot more than OpenAI’s ChatGPT. He cited a recent news story about a homeowner in Mill Valley marketing his 13-acre estate for sale in exchange for Anthropic stock as his inspiration for doing the same. Chattha said he believes average people should be able to buy a stake in large companies and take advantage of their growth. Because Anthropic is still private, ownership is generally limited to founders, employees, venture capitalists and certain investors. According to Chattha, companies like Anthropic are creating massive wealth by taking data from millions of regular people while barring them from ownership of the company’s success.

Chattha bought the Healdsburg property roughly a decade ago and first used it as a vacation home before turning it into a long-term rental for victims of wildfires in the region. The potential acquisition represents a rare opportunity as it is eligible for a vacation rental permit, which sometimes doesn’t carry over after a sale due to local laws, and is worth an estimated $178,000 in annual rental income.

The AI stock-for-homes trend isn’t limited to counties north of San Francisco. In the city itself, the owner of 160 Noe Street listed the three-bedroom home in Duboce Triangle late last month for just under $3 million with the option to pay in Anthropic or OpenAI stock. Unlike the Healdsburg property, there is no apparent discount for paying through stock over traditional funds.

— Chris Malone Méndez