4 ms·

$19B -> $30B annualized revenue in a month? Feels like the lede is buried here!

by ketzo 6mo ago

ai-x 6mo ago
[flagged]
- mrcwinn 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- baron816 6mo ago
  I think you can argue that AI is going to explode and take over the economy, and it’s still a bubble. I think one possible route is that cloud capacity just becomes totally commoditized and none of the hyperscalers will be able to extract the kinds of profit margins that would allow them to make a good return on their investment (model makers will fall victim to this too). Ultimately, what may happen is that market competition for everything explodes since AI and robots can do all the work, prices for everything (goods, services, assets) collapses, and no one is really any richer than anyone else.
  - zozbot234 6mo ago
    Even if the AI frontier becomes "totally commoditized" it will still be reliant on a scarce factor, namely leading-edge chips. Chipmakers will ultimately capture that value, because competing it away would require expanding the industry and that's a very slow process involving billion-dollar expenses planned far in advance (multiple years, and that lead time can only expand further as the required scale gets even larger).
    - kdkl 6mo ago
      Except you're neglecting the fact that LLMs can become more efficient. The magical thing about software is that efficiency gains can come pretty quickly relative to other industries.
      - MarsIronPI 6mo ago
        We're already seeing this with Qwen 3.5 and Gemma 4. They're better than GPT-3.5 and they run on smartphones and old laptops.
    - baron816 6mo ago
      You don’t think open AI models will eventually be able to design and build chips and fabs and all their components?
- javchz 6mo ago
  AI being a bubble it's not mutually exclusive of being a real and useful technology and the existence of non-snake oil companies. Cisco was a bubble in the dot com crash, despite being a company that provide real value and profit, just not at the level of the crazy expectations from the time.
  - ai-x 6mo ago
    I'm literally talking about the fact that Anthropic is making $30B Annual Revenue, which is the result of less than $10B investment two years ago. The public hasn't seen the insane ROA/ROI on GPUs. So all AI adjacent stocks are massively undervalued.
    - bootsmann 6mo ago
      I’m not sure your numbers are accurate, they raised $13bn in funding in September last year. Also do note that a lot of the money is cross-subsidized by Google who is funding the TPUs as an investment, so I wouldn’t be so confident that they are returning money quite yet (though it does seem that Anthropic might make it).
9cb14c1ec0 6mo ago
Also, very very recently they said in a court filing that their lifetime revenue was "at least" 5 billion. Which is it?
- xtacy 6mo ago
  Curious - what’s this court filing?
  - 9cb14c1ec0 6mo ago
    Too lazy to pull up a url, but it was a filing by Anthropic's CFO in the Anthropic v Department of War case.
- tabbott 6mo ago
  If your revenue doubles every month, then in the first month where you make $2.5B, your total lifetime revenue has been $5B ($2.5B this month, $1.25B the month before, etc. is a simple geometric series). But your current revenue run rate for the next year will be $2.5B x 12 = $30B. They're not quite growing that fast, but there's nothing inherently inconsistent between these claims... as long as the growth curve is crazy.
  - kdkl 6mo ago
    The reality is 1) It's in their interest to distort numbers and frame things that make them look good - e.g. using 'run-rate' 2) The numbers are not audited and we have no idea re. the manner in which they are recognising revenue - this can affect the true compounding rate of growth in revenues
    - signatoremo 6mo ago
      The numbers are certainly audited by their investors. Anthropic isn't foreign to PR talk, but investors know what to look for in their book. They aren't stupid unlike how they are viewed on HN. There are more investment money than Anthropic need. They can pick and choose.
oidar 6mo ago
Doesn't that beat openai in revenue?
kdkl 6mo ago
[flagged]
strongpigeon 6mo ago
All of big tech (except Google obviously) is pushing hard for Claude Code internally. I’m talking “you all have unlimited tokens and we’re going to have a leaderboard of who used the most” kind of push.
- causal 6mo ago
  "we’re going to have a leaderboard of who used the most" Yeah I've seen stuff like that and it's a bit bewildering for me. Feels a bit like AWS is new and we're competing to see who can deploy the most EC2 instances.
- kubb 6mo ago
  It’s the crudeness of available management methods at play. Quite exposing for the profession, really (remember lines of code as measure of productivity?).

$19B -> $30B annualized revenue in a month? Feels like the lede is buried here!

by ketzo 6mo ago

$19B -> $30B annualized revenue in a month? Feels like the lede is buried here!

ai-x 6mo ago

[flagged]

mrcwinn 6mo ago
[flagged]
baron816 6mo ago
I think you can argue that AI is going to explode and take over the economy, and it’s still a bubble. I think one possible route is that cloud capacity just becomes totally commoditized and none of the hyperscalers will be able to extract the kinds of profit margins that would allow them to make a good return on their investment (model makers will fall victim to this too). Ultimately, what may happen is that market competition for everything explodes since AI and robots can do all the work, prices for everything (goods, services, assets) collapses, and no one is really any richer than anyone else.
- zozbot234 6mo ago
  Even if the AI frontier becomes "totally commoditized" it will still be reliant on a scarce factor, namely leading-edge chips. Chipmakers will ultimately capture that value, because competing it away would require expanding the industry and that's a very slow process involving billion-dollar expenses planned far in advance (multiple years, and that lead time can only expand further as the required scale gets even larger).
  - kdkl 6mo ago
    Except you're neglecting the fact that LLMs can become more efficient. The magical thing about software is that efficiency gains can come pretty quickly relative to other industries.
    - MarsIronPI 6mo ago
      We're already seeing this with Qwen 3.5 and Gemma 4. They're better than GPT-3.5 and they run on smartphones and old laptops.
  - baron816 6mo ago
    You don’t think open AI models will eventually be able to design and build chips and fabs and all their components?
javchz 6mo ago
AI being a bubble it's not mutually exclusive of being a real and useful technology and the existence of non-snake oil companies. Cisco was a bubble in the dot com crash, despite being a company that provide real value and profit, just not at the level of the crazy expectations from the time.
- ai-x 6mo ago
  I'm literally talking about the fact that Anthropic is making $30B Annual Revenue, which is the result of less than $10B investment two years ago. The public hasn't seen the insane ROA/ROI on GPUs. So all AI adjacent stocks are massively undervalued.
  - bootsmann 6mo ago
    I’m not sure your numbers are accurate, they raised $13bn in funding in September last year. Also do note that a lot of the money is cross-subsidized by Google who is funding the TPUs as an investment, so I wouldn’t be so confident that they are returning money quite yet (though it does seem that Anthropic might make it).

9cb14c1ec0 6mo ago

Also, very very recently they said in a court filing that their lifetime revenue was "at least" 5 billion. Which is it?

xtacy 6mo ago
Curious - what’s this court filing?
- 9cb14c1ec0 6mo ago
  Too lazy to pull up a url, but it was a filing by Anthropic's CFO in the Anthropic v Department of War case.
tabbott 6mo ago
If your revenue doubles every month, then in the first month where you make $2.5B, your total lifetime revenue has been $5B ($2.5B this month, $1.25B the month before, etc. is a simple geometric series). But your current revenue run rate for the next year will be $2.5B x 12 = $30B. They're not quite growing that fast, but there's nothing inherently inconsistent between these claims... as long as the growth curve is crazy.
- kdkl 6mo ago
  The reality is 1) It's in their interest to distort numbers and frame things that make them look good - e.g. using 'run-rate' 2) The numbers are not audited and we have no idea re. the manner in which they are recognising revenue - this can affect the true compounding rate of growth in revenues
  - signatoremo 6mo ago
    The numbers are certainly audited by their investors. Anthropic isn't foreign to PR talk, but investors know what to look for in their book. They aren't stupid unlike how they are viewed on HN. There are more investment money than Anthropic need. They can pick and choose.

oidar 6mo ago

Doesn't that beat openai in revenue?

kdkl 6mo ago

[flagged]

strongpigeon 6mo ago

All of big tech (except Google obviously) is pushing hard for Claude Code internally. I’m talking “you all have unlimited tokens and we’re going to have a leaderboard of who used the most” kind of push.

causal 6mo ago
"we’re going to have a leaderboard of who used the most" Yeah I've seen stuff like that and it's a bit bewildering for me. Feels a bit like AWS is new and we're competing to see who can deploy the most EC2 instances.
kubb 6mo ago
It’s the crudeness of available management methods at play. Quite exposing for the profession, really (remember lines of code as measure of productivity?).