Self fund your project and build a prototype. If you can demonstrate even some limited progress the investor community will drown you in funding.

Once it becomes clear to non specialists that AGI is possible, and possibly imminent, that greatly changes the equation, though. This isn't a technology like any other.

Why wouldn't governments and other groups just seize the prototype? You'd have a hot-potato on your hands and figuring out how to survive might be your biggest concern. Like imagine you suddenly came into possession of a trillion dollars in bearer bonds. If that leaks out, people will come after you, not just by legal means.

All of this skews the calculus towards immediate public disclosure, rather than trying to gain advantage by delaying release.

EDIT> Or going first, and attempting to neutralize all possible competitors. This is a terrible calculus.

We're discussing reality here, not paranoid fantasies and conspiracy theories.