Shorting Rigetti Computing

Despite the market downturn since early October, my portfolio has handsomely increased by more than 70%+ over the same time period. Several of my friends have asked me how so I decided to capture all of the details below.

Since early October, I have been shorting Rigetti Computing, $RGTI, a Berkeley-based company focused on building quantum computers. As of today, the company is worth $7.78B, while generating $7.49M in revenue for the trailing twelve months [1]. That's roughly a 1040x multiple on revenue. For context, Nvidia is trading at 23.33x, Google is trading at 9.13x, and even the over-valued & psuedo-consulting software company Palantir is trading at 94.73x. I think that retail investors think these ratios are "nice-to-haves" and optional when investing in stocks. But, revenue multiples are to investment bankers what bytes are to software engineers, they're a core concept and a stark reminder that companies are supposed to make money.

Frankly, the company doesn't make much money. The company's Q3 earnings report showed a ~20% decrease in year-over-year revenue [2], reporting a whopping $1.9M in quarterly revenue as compared to $2.4M in 2024. $IONQ, another popular quantum computing company, reported $39.9M in quarterly revenue, a 222% year-over-year growth, showing that positive and even hyper growth is possible.

Last November, the stock was at $1. Let's assume that retail and institutional investors missed out on AI, are excited about an emerging technology, and want to get in early on quantum computing. To do so, they're willing to pay a 2-5x increase in the multiple of these companies. In that world, $RGTI should still only be $2-5. The company's plan is to build a 150+ qubit system by the end of 2026 and a 1000+ qubit system by the end of 2027. To me, it sounds like they're going to spend at least two more years burning money & building something that has no clear commercial viablity.

If you have confidence in the stock, that's good. Because the CEO doesn't. He exercised the right to purchase 1M shares of $RGTI in early May. In the same transaction, he sold every single share for $12 [4]. Yes, he has more unvested shares (approximately ~1.5M if my understanding is correct), giving him an incentive in the long-term success of the company. But, if you thought your company would be worth 2-3x in the next several years, why would you sell all of your shares?

In general, larger companies like Google and IBM are pouring large amounts of money into quantum with no desire to see returns in the short-term. This makes it harder for me to belive that a smaller company like $RGTI can compete and innovate in the space. $RGTI doesn't have the same luxury of time & I question their solvency on a 3-5 year time horizon. Both Bill Gates and Google's Head of Quantum acknowledge that we will see real-world commercial applications for quantum, but that it will take at least 3-5 years to do so. For what it's worth I'm not the only person exclaiming that quantum is a bubble. You can read Martin Shkreli's post on r/wsb on why he's short these companies as well.

I do not recommend shorting or buying put contracts on $RGTI. I actually got a little greedy & bought several thousand dollars worth of short-term contracts that ultimately expired worthless. Instead, I would buy $RGTZ, a Daily 2x Short ETF in the share price of $RGTI. Roughly speaking, for every $1 that $RGTI goes down, $RGTZ goes up $2. I entered the position on 10/23/2025 when $RGTZ was $14.35. I exited the position on 11/17/2025 when $RGTZ was $27.12, representing an 89% gain in just several weeks time. I exited in anticipation of $NVDA earnings, but will be re-entering the position on 11/24+. I do acknowledge that this early success falls on good timing, as I entered the position during a market pulldown. That being said, I fundamentally think this stock is overvalued and feel comfortable holding it for several months until $RGTI hits $10-14. Afer that, I'll probably sell, despite it being likely that this piece of shit stock could be worth less than a $1.

As a side note, here's Warren Buffet's take on diversification. In general, I think if you feel that you see something others don't, taking concentrated bets on that idea leads to outsized returns, whether it's in investing or building.

This is not financial advice, but the ramblings of a 27 year-old trying to break out of the permanent underclass.