The kids ‘picked last in gym class’ gear up for Super Bowl

The Super Bowl takes place in Silicon Valley this Sunday, and the matchup between the Patriots and the Seahawks at Levi’s Stadium is expected to be overflowing with tech industry wealth. Neal Mohan, the CEO of YouTube, is anticipated to attend, along with Tim Cook of Apple. Cook has become a familiar presence at the Super Bowl since Apple Music began sponsoring the halftime show several years ago.

Veteran venture capitalist Venky Ganesan of Menlo Ventures offered a memorable take on the scene in a quote to The New York Times. He described a Bay Area Super Bowl as “tech billionaires who got picked last in gym class paying $50,000 to pretend they’re friends with the guys who got picked first.” Ganesan added, “And for the record, I, too, was picked last in gym class.”

Ganesan could manage a $50,000 ticket if necessary. Menlo Ventures has gone all-in on Anthropic, establishing a $100 million fund with the AI firm in the summer of 2024 to back other artificial intelligence startups. The venture firm has also participated in multiple funding rounds for Anthropic, both through its central fund and through a range of special-purpose vehicles. Anthropic is reportedly on track to close a $20 billion funding round next week, which would value the company at $350 billion post-money.

Super Bowl tickets are costly across the board. According to the Times, the average price is close to $7,000, though a quick check of StubHub shows some last-minute seats still available for around $3,600. Only about 25% of tickets are made available to the general public, with the remainder allocated to NFL teams. Among ticket buyers, the largest share — roughly 27% — is coming from Washington State to support the Seahawks, who have won just one Super Bowl in their franchise history. By contrast, the Patriots have claimed six championships, all with Tom Brady at quarterback.

Meanwhile, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Amazon, and Meta are spending heavily on competing Super Bowl ads to promote whose AI offerings are best for consumers. That has fueled speculation that some of their CEOs could also attend the game. Except Andy Jassy, who reportedly splits his time between Seattle and Santa Monica, all of those executives are believed to own homes within about an hour’s drive of Sunday’s matchup.

This marks only the third time the Bay Area has hosted the Super Bowl. The first was in 1985 at Stanford Stadium, the original football stadium at Stanford University, where the 49ers defeated the Dolphins. The second came a decade ago at Levi’s Stadium, when the Broncos beat the Panthers.