CoreWeave co-founder Brian Venturo knows that three hedge fund guys, turned crypto miners, now running AI training infrastructure has been a wild ride.

CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) stock has had a bumpy start after it hit the public markets last week. Its initial public offering (IPO) wasn't well received on Friday, and the stock plunged in its first full day of trading yesterday.

Thanks to artificial intelligence, DeepSeek’s founder, Alphabet’s CEO, four CoreWeave execs and a bunch of other tech tycoons have joined Forbes’ billionaires list for the first time.

It’s easy to interpret CoreWeave’s lackluster IPO and muted first day of trading on Friday as bad news for the entire AI boom. But, as I’ll explain in a moment, that’s likely a mistake: many of CoreWeave’s problems are unique to CoreWeave.

CoreWeave's IPO debut tests neocloud viability and reliance on Nvidia GPUs.

The company closed flat after a volatile trading debut and concerns over its business model

CoreWeave's stock plunged nearly 10% on Monday, dropping below its IPO price, raising concerns about AI-focused IPOs in a volatile market.

CoreWeave will only receive the profits from the 36,590,000 it sells. That means CoreWeave potentially raised more than $1.46 billion in its IPO. At its $40 per share IPO price, CoreWeave has a fully diluted valuation of around $23 billion, according to Reuters.

CoreWeave in recent years found itself in something of an enviable position. Starting out in 2017, it bought GPUs to supply to the cryptocurrency mining industry, only to pivot to AI when that became the hot new trend. CoreWeave is fundamentally a picks and shovels business: It supplies GPUs to an industry that has desperately sought them.

Thanks to artificial intelligence, DeepSeek’s founder, Alphabet’s CEO, four CoreWeave execs and a bunch of other tech tycoons have joined Forbes’ billionaires list for the first time.