Live data from Hacker News

Anthropic raises $13B Series F

anthropic.com

211–220 of 661 posts

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#211

The compute moat is getting absolutely insane. We're basically at the point where you need a small country's GDP just to stay in the game for one more generation of models. What gets me is that this isn't even a software moat anymore - it's literally just whoever can get their hands on enough GPUs and power infrastructure. TSMC and the power companies are the real kingmakers here. You can have all the talent in the w…

> The compute moat is getting absolutely insane. We're basically at the point where you need a small country's GDP just to stay in the game for one more generation of models. For what it is worth, $13 billion is about the GDP of Somalia (about 150th in nomimal GDP) with a population of 15 million people.

As a fun comparison, because I saw the population is more or less the same.

The GDP of the Netherlands is about $1.2 trillion with a population of 18 million people.

I understand that that’s not quite what’s meant with ‘small country’ but in both population and size it doesn’t necessarily seem accurate.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#212
post #192

That's now between an entire Instagram and WhatsApp acquisition cost. It's hard to escape the conclusion this is dumb money jumping on a bandwagon. To justify the expected returns here requires someone to make a transformer like leap again, and that doesn't take spending huge amounts in one place, but funding a lot more speculative thinkers.

I don’t like to think of predicting the future as “a conclusion” of some assumptions. I don’t think it puts you in a frame of mind such that you’re genuinely curious.

> Remember the YouTube acquisition? To many, it seemed bonkers.

Because of the legal uncertainty about what they were doing. There was no fundamental technological impediment.

Here the technology simply doesn't exist and this is a giant bet that it can be magically created by throwing (a lot) more money at the existing idea. This is why it's "dumb money" because they don't seem to understand the dynamics of what they're investing in.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#213
It’s about time the western world finally changes from a five to four-day work week!

That’s just about the most tangible benefit I see this AI breakthrough delivering. What an asset to have too, socially and civilly, especially when compared to the west’s primary adversary: the CCCP and its communist message of ‘equality’ for the people when they’re still working six days a week!

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before you pat yourself on the back for being so smart and grounded... Remember, every technology you use today followed this pattern, with winners emerging that absolutely did go on to be extremely profitable for decades. Most of us remember the .com era. But in the early 1900s there was literally hundreds of automotive startups (actual car companies, and tens of thousands of supplier startups) in the metro-detroit…

And they also realize they don't need to be fantastic investments to pay off, they just need to IPO/be acquired at a higher share price.

RIP our 401ks that will end up being the bagholders when its dumped on the market.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always makes you wonder how many companies that are successes today could’ve had their SBF moment, but market conditions kept them afloat

> In the early days of FedEx, Smith had to go to great lengths to keep the company afloat. In one instance, after a crucial business loan was denied, he took the company's last $5,000 to Las Vegas and won $27,000 gambling on blackjack to cover the company's $24,000 fuel bill. Some who take on unreasonable risk will be among the most successful people alive. Most will lose eventually, long before you hear about them i…

What this version of the FedEx story doesn't mention is that Fred was already stiffing his pilots on their salaries. Taking the last money in the company and deciding that the best use for it was the blackjack table in Vegas and not paying his employees ... worked well, but it was a gamble, let's be clear, not a calculated decision - like you say, not the decision of a "great genius". It goes a different way, and you have "FedEx founder decides to go gambling, leaving his employees without paychecks".

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#216
post #2

These numbers seem made up at times / difficult to comprehend what they expect is happening ...

It's a post-money valuation, so that suggests the money involved has transcended beyond actual moneyness into some other post-meaningful realm.

Step 1: burn billions of dollars.

Step 2: achieve AGI.

Step 3: ?

Step 4: transcend money.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#217
post #59

Wait did I see “ Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan” as an investor? Are they putting Canadian public funds into Anthropic?

Weren't they also a significant investor in FTX?

Yes. So they indirectly owned some Anthropic through the FTX bankruptcy. I kinda wonder whether they somehow opted to keep their Anthropic stake when the FTX estate sold. Or maybe they bought it at some other time.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#218
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locally run video models that are just as good as today’s closed models are going to be the watershed moment The companies doing foundational video models have stakeholders that don’t want to be associated with what people really want to generate But they are pushing the space forward and the uncensored and unrestricted video model is coming

Maybe. The question is, will legislation be fast enough? Maybe, if people keep going for politician porn: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/28/outrage-in-ita...

Well considering it has been possible to produce similar doctored images for decades at this point, I think we can conclude legislation has not been fast enough.

That article is nothing to do with AI, really.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#219

The compute moat is getting absolutely insane. We're basically at the point where you need a small country's GDP just to stay in the game for one more generation of models. What gets me is that this isn't even a software moat anymore - it's literally just whoever can get their hands on enough GPUs and power infrastructure. TSMC and the power companies are the real kingmakers here. You can have all the talent in the w…

I'm not an expert at how private investment rounds work, but aren't most "raises" of AI companies just huge commitments of compute capacity? Either pre-existing or build-out.

Re: Anthropic raises $13B Series F

#220
There's a big issue with a lot of thinking about these valuations, which is that LLM inference does not need the 5-nines of uptime guarantees that cloud datacenters provide. You are going to see small business investors around the world pursue the following model:

- Buy an old warehouse and a bunch of GPUs

- Hire your local tech dude to set up the machines and install some open-source LLMs

- Connect your machines to a routing service that matches customers who want LLM inference with providers

If the service goes down for a day, the owner just loses a day's worth of income, nobody else cares (it's not like customers are going to be screaming at you to find their data). This kind of passive, turn-key business is a dream for many investors. Comparable passive investments like car washes, real estate, laundromats, self-storage, etc are messier.

Post reply on HN