Definition
pre-stealth
-
adjective
of a person Having decided to start a company before the company exists: no incorporation, no team page, no stealth listing.
“Most of next year’s founders are pre-stealth today.”
-
noun
The stage before stealth, in which the decision to found has been made and nothing is yet public.
“She spent six months in pre-stealth before raising.”
Origin From pre- + stealth. Coined by Specter, 2026.
Every VC is chasing the same stealth founders. Same lists. Same alerts. Same week.
By the time someone goes stealth, the race has started. Pre-stealth is the moment before it. The decision is made. Nothing is public. No company, no team page, no listing.
It shows in the pattern.
Long before an announcement, people leave traces. We read them.
A retention cliff, quietly passed.
A last day, and no next one.
A degree left unfinished, on purpose.
Investors calling about something other than a job.
Withheld
Some signals we keep to ourselves.
- 05
- 06
- 07
Decrypted inside Specter.
700M
people our models learn from.
Trained on the founders who came before.
Our models study what the last generation of founders looked like in the years before they founded. Then they find the people who look like that today.