3 ms·

Anthropic and OpenAI are shipping AI agent SaaS and generating tens of billions in revenue. It's safe to say yes.

by mvkel 8mo ago

anonymous908213 8mo ago
Twenty billion in revenue on hundreds of billions in debt is not "making money".
- lovich 8mo ago
  its just the dotcom bubble all over again, only at a larger scale. Theyre selling a dollar for 1 cent, but theyll make up the difference with volume.
  - bdcravens 8mo ago
    And yet many of the tech incumbents in today's world came out of that era.
    - blitzar 8mo ago
      And yet many of the tech failures came out of that era.
    - relaxing 8mo ago
      Name them. 1. Amazon 2. Google 3. Salesforce 4. ??? One that actually sold things. One that was legitimately sector-defining. One that wasn’t a B2C dotcom.
      - bdcravens 8mo ago
        eBay, VMWare, Akamai, Paypal, to name a few.
        relaxing 8mo ago
        actually sold things, not a dotcom, b2b infrastructure, legitimately sector defining the companies that survived the bust weren’t the ones doing the land grab shenanigans
      - mvkel 8mo ago
        I mean, given your very specific filter, how many companies exist today that were formed in the last decade would be on the list? Stripe?
  - jasomill 8mo ago
    Pitches for my new startup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXDxNCzUspM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXDxNCzUspM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KodqIPMbyUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KodqIPMbyUg
  - mvkel 8mo ago
    It's more like "Tesla is going to be bankrupt imminently" all over again. Name a time in history when a company with an industry-defining product with huge demand failed under the weight of cash flow, or regulation. Frontier AI is very close to a zero sum game. Focus on profit, and you will lose.
- bdcravens 8mo ago
  If we judged all startups by the same standards (in terms of revenue to debt ratios), many of today's established companies would have been "failures" at the same point in their life cycle.
  - BoredPositron 8mo ago
    I wonder what the ratio of failures and survivors would be if we really judged all startups... survivorship bias is not a great point to make.
blacksmith_tb 8mo ago
OpenAI's own estimate is a $14B loss in 2026[1]. Anthropic is aiming to break even this year (and some of that is probably due to Cowork, so that at least isn't unreasonable). So it may be revenue, but it isn't profit, yet... 1: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openais-own-forecast-predicts-14-150445813.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openais-own-forecast-predicts...
- grebc 8mo ago
  You’re not approaching it from startup accounting. It’s only equity(Sam’s) that matter. Profit is a trifling matter.
- mvkel 8mo ago
  Profit is what you do when you're not trying to grow. Name a time in history when a company with an industry-defining product with huge demand failed under the weight of cash flow, or regulation.

Anthropic and OpenAI are shipping AI agent SaaS and generating tens of billions in revenue. It's safe to say yes.

by mvkel 8mo ago

Anthropic and OpenAI are shipping AI agent SaaS and generating tens of billions in revenue. It's safe to say yes.

anonymous908213 8mo ago

Twenty billion in revenue on hundreds of billions in debt is not "making money".

lovich 8mo ago
its just the dotcom bubble all over again, only at a larger scale. Theyre selling a dollar for 1 cent, but theyll make up the difference with volume.
- bdcravens 8mo ago
  And yet many of the tech incumbents in today's world came out of that era.
  - blitzar 8mo ago
    And yet many of the tech failures came out of that era.
  - relaxing 8mo ago
    Name them. 1. Amazon 2. Google 3. Salesforce 4. ??? One that actually sold things. One that was legitimately sector-defining. One that wasn’t a B2C dotcom.
    - bdcravens 8mo ago
      eBay, VMWare, Akamai, Paypal, to name a few.
      - relaxing 8mo ago
        actually sold things, not a dotcom, b2b infrastructure, legitimately sector defining the companies that survived the bust weren’t the ones doing the land grab shenanigans
    - mvkel 8mo ago
      I mean, given your very specific filter, how many companies exist today that were formed in the last decade would be on the list? Stripe?
- jasomill 8mo ago
  Pitches for my new startup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXDxNCzUspM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXDxNCzUspM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KodqIPMbyUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KodqIPMbyUg
- mvkel 8mo ago
  It's more like "Tesla is going to be bankrupt imminently" all over again. Name a time in history when a company with an industry-defining product with huge demand failed under the weight of cash flow, or regulation. Frontier AI is very close to a zero sum game. Focus on profit, and you will lose.
bdcravens 8mo ago
If we judged all startups by the same standards (in terms of revenue to debt ratios), many of today's established companies would have been "failures" at the same point in their life cycle.
- BoredPositron 8mo ago
  I wonder what the ratio of failures and survivors would be if we really judged all startups... survivorship bias is not a great point to make.

blacksmith_tb 8mo ago

OpenAI's own estimate is a $14B loss in 2026[1]. Anthropic is aiming to break even this year (and some of that is probably due to Cowork, so that at least isn't unreasonable). So it may be revenue, but it isn't profit, yet... 1: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openais-own-forecast-predicts-14-150445813.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openais-own-forecast-predicts...

grebc 8mo ago
You’re not approaching it from startup accounting. It’s only equity(Sam’s) that matter. Profit is a trifling matter.
mvkel 8mo ago
Profit is what you do when you're not trying to grow. Name a time in history when a company with an industry-defining product with huge demand failed under the weight of cash flow, or regulation.