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Anthropic at $1t for an IPO vs Google at $23b in 2004 sounds insane but Google's revenue at the time was $2.7b while Anthropic's already at $47b, so a valuation

Anthropic at $1t for an IPO vs Google at $23b in 2004 sounds insane but Google's revenue at the time was $2.7b while Anthropic's already at $47b, so a valuation at about 20x vs 10x revenue. Anthropic also has very high revenue growth (50x since 2024), it doesn't seems quite as insane as it could be.

testrun 5mo ago
That is revenue. What is the net profit?
- giancarlostoro 5mo ago
  They reported 559 million in Q2 of this year. OpenAI on the other hand, is nowhere near this.
  - qaq 5mo ago
    because of the mutual sweetheart deal with SpaceX SpaceX gave em discount for the pre IPO quarter so they can show profit Anthropic signed a deal to lease compute that is the bulk of SpaceX revenue
    - zuzululu 5mo ago
      and i think here lies the chess move by Elon he's trying to steal OpenAI's limelight and shit on their road show I'm actually quite surprised how much money Anthropic pulls Also surprised that OpenAI is not pulling as much as I thought All in all it looks like OpenAI is in a bit of a vulnerable position.
      - qaq 5mo ago
        I don't know if it is a chess move but Elon certainly will take every possible opportunity to fk over Sam. Have to admit watching these two sociopaths duking it out is somewhat entertaining.
  - elAhmo 5mo ago
    Not using GAAP, so this is just PR for them.
- jandrewrogers 5mo ago
  If you are growing revenue at a high rate then taking profit is a misallocation of resources. That is short-term thinking. It is much better to reinvest in revenue growth. You can take small profit now or much larger profit later. Insisting that companies need to be profitable even when growing revenue rapidly is failing the marshmallow test.
  - smallerize 5mo ago
    I guess net isn't the relevant measure, but what are the unit economics? Are they actually making money selling tokens?
    - crthpl 5mo ago
      on the API, their margins are very high
  - nixon_why69 5mo ago
    The point is that the unit economics are way worse because inference is expensive. Cost of goods sold matters, even if you're reinvesting profits.
    - jraby3 5mo ago
      Inference has dropped by like 75% from a year ago. While anthropic does offer more tokens now for the same money, the value of the business is based on an expectation of future profits. There are dozens, if not hundreds of examples of companies being valued this way.
      - nixon_why69 5mo ago
        You could be right but the unit economics matter to this business in a way they don't for a SaaS or ads business, they're not free and you can't just point at revenue.
        5mo ago
- elAhmo 5mo ago
  Please don't ask those rational questions, revenue is all that maters.
- Schlagbohrer 5mo ago
  These AI companies will be able to jack prices way way up once companies and users are fully addicted to doing everything with their AI.
- daniel_iversen 5mo ago
  Doesn't inference have very good profit margins* but all the losses come from training? * For now, when they don't have to compete much against companies like DeepSeek who supplies inference at 1/10th of the cost
  - SlinkyOnStairs 5mo ago
    > Doesn't inference have very good profit margins* but all the losses come from training? There is no source for this. Amodei just pulled a hypothetical explicitly distanced from Anthropic out of his ass and kickstarted some citogenesis when people half-remembered that number and started quoting it as truth. The only material claim of Anthropic is that they would "turn an operating profit of $559 million in the June quarter ... The company might not remain profitable for the full year as it plans spending increases due to its vast computing needs." with an explicit disclaimer that: "It is unclear what accounting methods Anthropic has used to book revenue and costs, as the company isn’t yet required to follow the financial-reporting requirements of a public company." https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-propel-anthropic-into-its-first-profitable-quarter-7edbf2f4 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-... This is the exact same quarter where xAI is giving them deeply discounted compute, as such the numbers cannot be projected out to the later quarters once Anthropic has to actually pay xAI for the compute they use. Finally, there's the reality that were the revenue numbers any good, Anthropic would just publish them and leapfrog OpenAI. That they do not provide clear GAAP numbers suggests the numbers are bad.
- cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
  I suspect the answer is: in the future after Moore's law somehow inevitably does its thing. That has worked in the past for tech infrastructure, so there is clearly a gamble that it does that again here.
- kaliqt 5mo ago
  While good to ask, that is less relevant so long as they can maintain runway.
- wrsh07 5mo ago
  Net profit is the wrong metric for high growth companies. You want the unit economics. If the unit economics look great (my understanding is they're at least fine-to-good), then they should not be taking profit because it is very much in their interest to do capex to grow their capacity so that they can continue to grow. It's a knife's edge because if they invest too aggressively it could lead to bankruptcy, but so far they've actually been quite conservative and given their unit economics they can afford to pay $$$$ for expensive inference compute (and indeed that's why they've inked a bunch of deals in the past month or two)
  - 383toast 5mo ago
    unit economics aren't great for anthropic are they
    - wrsh07 5mo ago
      What do you think they are, what do you want them to be, and how much revenue and growth do they need before low margins make for a monster of a company?
      - greiskul 5mo ago
        From all their desperation in making sure api keys are not used in contexts where they are not supposed to, I would say that they actually appear to have services where their profit is negative, if a customer is actually using their api to the limits they set, they lose money. They wouldn't have been this desperate in trying to shut off OpenClaw if it wasn't this way. Most companies that provide api infrastructure love when a killer app using their api is made by outsiders. And while you can beat low margin with scale, there is the famous joke "we lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume". If you scale a low margin operation, you can become giant. If you scale a loss making operation, you go bankrupt.
        wrsh07 5mo ago
        Yup - the subscriptions are a VC subsidy. They've been phasing their enterprise customers directly onto API-pay-per-usage pricing (hence the recent reports from Uber and Microsoft about phasing out Claude code). Rest assured, many of their customers are happy paying for the value they get from Claude code. The subscription is the loss leader to show you how good it is. And people think it's good and worth paying for. There is some reason to think their margins will improve, also: they couldn't really plan for the capacity they've needed so far this year, so they're paying through the nose for it. That's fine because they can pass the cost onto customers and give a more reliable service at cost. But in a few years, they should be able to get those costs under control (presuming some ops excellence. Something Google has in spades)
conradkay 5mo ago
Looks like it'll be more like $2t https://polymarket.com/event/anthropic-ipo-closing-market-cap-979 https://polymarket.com/event/anthropic-ipo-closing-market-ca...
- smithza 4mo ago
  To assess where a event betting platform has placed their lines is in no way useful here. Perhaps you are only fishing for people to pile onto the other side of a bet you made or helping you to feel well about this bet you chose to make which would be an inappropriate use of this platform.
SilverElfin 5mo ago
What’s defensible about Anthropic’s revenue? It seems like OpenAI and others are equivalent. Open weight models are catching up. Google has ads networks, video platforms, and so much more. I am skeptical that Anthropic and OpenAI can defend their dominance for long enough to make meaningful gaap accounted profits
- giancarlostoro 5mo ago
  Anthropic is profitable unlike OpenAI though. Sure they'll owe a lot of money for probably decades, but if they remain profitable moving forward, it will be worthwhile.
  - georgemcbay 5mo ago
    The question still remains whether they will be defensively profitable when things settle down. I don't think open weight models are likely to overtake or match frontier models in the next year or so when it comes to doing the most difficult tasks, but I do expect a lot of people who are currently funneling wheelbarrows of money to Anthropic to realize that they can achieve the vast majority of things they are doing with LLMs just as well with much cheaper open weight models.
    - giancarlostoro 5mo ago
      That is 100% valid, and I don't disagree.
  - SilverElfin 5mo ago
    That profit figure is a pre IPO marketing claim, not an audited and GAAP accounted number. And there is already a lot written about how Anthropic exaggerated revenue compared to OpenAI. https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2026/03/25/openai-and-anthropic-count-revenue-differently-and-investors-are-looking-into-it/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2026/03/25/openai-a...
    - jraby3 5mo ago
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]

testrun 5mo ago

That is revenue. What is the net profit?

giancarlostoro 5mo ago
They reported 559 million in Q2 of this year. OpenAI on the other hand, is nowhere near this.
- qaq 5mo ago
  because of the mutual sweetheart deal with SpaceX SpaceX gave em discount for the pre IPO quarter so they can show profit Anthropic signed a deal to lease compute that is the bulk of SpaceX revenue
  - zuzululu 5mo ago
    and i think here lies the chess move by Elon he's trying to steal OpenAI's limelight and shit on their road show I'm actually quite surprised how much money Anthropic pulls Also surprised that OpenAI is not pulling as much as I thought All in all it looks like OpenAI is in a bit of a vulnerable position.
    - qaq 5mo ago
      I don't know if it is a chess move but Elon certainly will take every possible opportunity to fk over Sam. Have to admit watching these two sociopaths duking it out is somewhat entertaining.
- elAhmo 5mo ago
  Not using GAAP, so this is just PR for them.
jandrewrogers 5mo ago
If you are growing revenue at a high rate then taking profit is a misallocation of resources. That is short-term thinking. It is much better to reinvest in revenue growth. You can take small profit now or much larger profit later. Insisting that companies need to be profitable even when growing revenue rapidly is failing the marshmallow test.
- smallerize 5mo ago
  I guess net isn't the relevant measure, but what are the unit economics? Are they actually making money selling tokens?
  - crthpl 5mo ago
    on the API, their margins are very high
- nixon_why69 5mo ago
  The point is that the unit economics are way worse because inference is expensive. Cost of goods sold matters, even if you're reinvesting profits.
  - jraby3 5mo ago
    Inference has dropped by like 75% from a year ago. While anthropic does offer more tokens now for the same money, the value of the business is based on an expectation of future profits. There are dozens, if not hundreds of examples of companies being valued this way.
    - nixon_why69 5mo ago
      You could be right but the unit economics matter to this business in a way they don't for a SaaS or ads business, they're not free and you can't just point at revenue.
      - 5mo ago
elAhmo 5mo ago
Please don't ask those rational questions, revenue is all that maters.
Schlagbohrer 5mo ago
These AI companies will be able to jack prices way way up once companies and users are fully addicted to doing everything with their AI.
daniel_iversen 5mo ago
Doesn't inference have very good profit margins* but all the losses come from training? * For now, when they don't have to compete much against companies like DeepSeek who supplies inference at 1/10th of the cost
- SlinkyOnStairs 5mo ago
  > Doesn't inference have very good profit margins* but all the losses come from training? There is no source for this. Amodei just pulled a hypothetical explicitly distanced from Anthropic out of his ass and kickstarted some citogenesis when people half-remembered that number and started quoting it as truth. The only material claim of Anthropic is that they would "turn an operating profit of $559 million in the June quarter ... The company might not remain profitable for the full year as it plans spending increases due to its vast computing needs." with an explicit disclaimer that: "It is unclear what accounting methods Anthropic has used to book revenue and costs, as the company isn’t yet required to follow the financial-reporting requirements of a public company." https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-propel-anthropic-into-its-first-profitable-quarter-7edbf2f4 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mind-blowing-growth-is-about-to-... This is the exact same quarter where xAI is giving them deeply discounted compute, as such the numbers cannot be projected out to the later quarters once Anthropic has to actually pay xAI for the compute they use. Finally, there's the reality that were the revenue numbers any good, Anthropic would just publish them and leapfrog OpenAI. That they do not provide clear GAAP numbers suggests the numbers are bad.
cmrdporcupine 5mo ago
I suspect the answer is: in the future after Moore's law somehow inevitably does its thing. That has worked in the past for tech infrastructure, so there is clearly a gamble that it does that again here.
kaliqt 5mo ago
While good to ask, that is less relevant so long as they can maintain runway.
wrsh07 5mo ago
Net profit is the wrong metric for high growth companies. You want the unit economics. If the unit economics look great (my understanding is they're at least fine-to-good), then they should not be taking profit because it is very much in their interest to do capex to grow their capacity so that they can continue to grow. It's a knife's edge because if they invest too aggressively it could lead to bankruptcy, but so far they've actually been quite conservative and given their unit economics they can afford to pay $$$$ for expensive inference compute (and indeed that's why they've inked a bunch of deals in the past month or two)
- 383toast 5mo ago
  unit economics aren't great for anthropic are they
  - wrsh07 5mo ago
    What do you think they are, what do you want them to be, and how much revenue and growth do they need before low margins make for a monster of a company?
    - greiskul 5mo ago
      From all their desperation in making sure api keys are not used in contexts where they are not supposed to, I would say that they actually appear to have services where their profit is negative, if a customer is actually using their api to the limits they set, they lose money. They wouldn't have been this desperate in trying to shut off OpenClaw if it wasn't this way. Most companies that provide api infrastructure love when a killer app using their api is made by outsiders. And while you can beat low margin with scale, there is the famous joke "we lose money on every sale, but make it up in volume". If you scale a low margin operation, you can become giant. If you scale a loss making operation, you go bankrupt.
      - wrsh07 5mo ago
        Yup - the subscriptions are a VC subsidy. They've been phasing their enterprise customers directly onto API-pay-per-usage pricing (hence the recent reports from Uber and Microsoft about phasing out Claude code). Rest assured, many of their customers are happy paying for the value they get from Claude code. The subscription is the loss leader to show you how good it is. And people think it's good and worth paying for. There is some reason to think their margins will improve, also: they couldn't really plan for the capacity they've needed so far this year, so they're paying through the nose for it. That's fine because they can pass the cost onto customers and give a more reliable service at cost. But in a few years, they should be able to get those costs under control (presuming some ops excellence. Something Google has in spades)

conradkay 5mo ago

Looks like it'll be more like $2t https://polymarket.com/event/anthropic-ipo-closing-market-cap-979 https://polymarket.com/event/anthropic-ipo-closing-market-ca...

smithza 4mo ago
To assess where a event betting platform has placed their lines is in no way useful here. Perhaps you are only fishing for people to pile onto the other side of a bet you made or helping you to feel well about this bet you chose to make which would be an inappropriate use of this platform.

SilverElfin 5mo ago

What’s defensible about Anthropic’s revenue? It seems like OpenAI and others are equivalent. Open weight models are catching up. Google has ads networks, video platforms, and so much more. I am skeptical that Anthropic and OpenAI can defend their dominance for long enough to make meaningful gaap accounted profits

giancarlostoro 5mo ago
Anthropic is profitable unlike OpenAI though. Sure they'll owe a lot of money for probably decades, but if they remain profitable moving forward, it will be worthwhile.
- georgemcbay 5mo ago
  The question still remains whether they will be defensively profitable when things settle down. I don't think open weight models are likely to overtake or match frontier models in the next year or so when it comes to doing the most difficult tasks, but I do expect a lot of people who are currently funneling wheelbarrows of money to Anthropic to realize that they can achieve the vast majority of things they are doing with LLMs just as well with much cheaper open weight models.
  - giancarlostoro 5mo ago
    That is 100% valid, and I don't disagree.
- SilverElfin 5mo ago
  That profit figure is a pre IPO marketing claim, not an audited and GAAP accounted number. And there is already a lot written about how Anthropic exaggerated revenue compared to OpenAI. https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2026/03/25/openai-and-anthropic-count-revenue-differently-and-investors-are-looking-into-it/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/josipamajic/2026/03/25/openai-a...
  - jraby3 5mo ago

deleted 5mo ago

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