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Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

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Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#441

Post by adammarples »

lumost wrote: post #332
ml_basics wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe we will look back and also think that the current slate of IPOs were reasonable valuations?

The critical view is that these IPOs are bumping up against physics. How many trillion dollar companies can the economy support? The US GDP is roughly 32 Trillion. A company with 100 billion dollars in revenue and 10x annual growth would be expected to increase the size of the economy by 3.2% in its first year, and about 30% in it's second year post IPO existing. While we could claim that such a company can grow by c…

If Anthropic has anything line that level of success, it will also be at the expense of huge unemployment, because Claude is really competing with knowledge work

Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#442

Post by InsideOutSanta »

Analemma_ wrote: post #38
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*run-rate revenue Without more information, this number is impossible to interpret.

This has become a meme which is way out over its skis. Yes, run-rate is not the complete story, but "impossible to interpret" is way overstating the case.

No, it's not. We do not know how Anthropic calculates it, or even if they calculate each number they report identically, hence the number is impossible to interpret.

Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#443

Post by charlie0 »

epolanski wrote: post #382
charlie0 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dead capital. There's no need for public funding until they are reasy to cash out at the top, if ever.

> There's no need for public funding You're assuming private liquidity to be infinite and private credit (that fuels VCs) to always have favorable rates.

When you have companies like SpaceX and Anthropic raising billions, it is hard to believe that private credit isn't virtually infinite.

Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#444

Post by jmalicki »

parliament32 wrote: post #424
anomaly_ wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you trying to be deliberately obtuse? Obviously, you can fudge the number with assumptions around churn rates/etc, but of course an investor would want a view of the rough 12m state of the business.

...which is why we have GAAP-recognized metrics, right? To prevent fudge-ability? And those metrics.. they're deliberately not publishing? Makes you think.

GAAP is basically a standards body to recognize practices.

When there are interesting stories that can't be told with GAAP metrics, accountants derive new metrics. Just because they haven't gone through the standardization process yet doesn't mean they're bullshit - investors in Anthropic can hire auditors to ensure the Anthropic metrics are still meaningful. There are a very small number of deep pocketed investors in Anthropic - they're not a public company like Enron trying to sell to the WSB crowd, or like 2007 CDOs being sold to dentists.

And run rate has been a widely recognized metric for SaaS as long as it has existed - it has meaning and can be audited.

Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#446

Post by ethbr1 »

solumunus wrote: post #438
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the layoffs we are going through right now are patently due to the high cost of AI buildouts and transitions. Meta is taking on significant debt for the first time in a long time to continue their build out plans as AI components have spiked in price. I get what you're saying about how every employee becomes a liability when they are let loose with an AI, and totally agree. But I think the layoffs have a much…

I really can’t fathom the Meta strategy at all here.

The same as Google's: use overwhelming funding drown any burgeoning product category with the potential to threaten core profit center.

Turn a potential existential competition into (a) maybe I win or (b) I commoditize the market and you can't make money at it either.

Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#447

Post by phil21 »

mettamage wrote: post #148

I wish I could invest into it, I'd at the very least have invested in their Series F. It was a no brainer by that point. If anyone could teach me how to get into stuff like this, that'd be awesome. I'm from the Netherlands, so not American. Though I'm married to an American.

I am not a financial advisor or even remotely an expert.

I did look into this briefly long ago for SpaceX. There are ways for relatively small investors (and I do mean relatively!) to get into some of these companies equity pre-exit by buying shares from employees who currently hold them for those who want to reduce risk/need the cash now vs. later.

You will likely need to have enough assets already with a single institution to have a private banking relationship with your bank. They would be the one to call to ask what options might be available. There are other options like EquityZen that make it more accessible, but I have not looked into those at all.

You will also need to be either an accredited investor or a qualified investor ($1M/$5M minimum networth not counting your personal property) depending on how each company is setup, but again I'm not entirely sure on details there.

I stopped looking into it when I was told that there was a $1M minimum buy-in at that time. More than I was looking to do at the time. I imagine it's much higher these days.

These are of course highly risk investments and I am unsure of how tested these structures are - so I imagine there is some counterparty risk on top of all the usual stuff.

Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#448

Post by solumunus »

ethbr1 wrote: post #446
solumunus wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can’t fathom the Meta strategy at all here.

The same as Google's: use overwhelming funding drown any burgeoning product category with the potential to threaten core profit center. Turn a potential existential competition into (a) maybe I win or (b) I commoditize the market and you can't make money at it either.

An alternative strategy would be to stack insane amounts of cash while every other competitor is blowing theirs, putting you in an incredible position to deploy capital whenever this bubble pops. This seems so much more obvious, to me at least. I think AI is the future but it’s far more likely than not that the current phase of the market is a bubble and unsustainable. What even has Meta produced with all this AI spend? I’m not even sure what race they’re in. It just seems like a big AGI or nothing gamble. Personally I would be watching all my competitors make that bet and laughing all the way to the bank as my financial position constantly improved relatively. A lot of your competitors are basically practising self harm right in front of you and you’re joining in? Maybe I’m the idiot who is missing something, but I just don’t get it.

Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#449

Post by jjav »

DanielHB wrote: post #383
executivevice wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Approximately 56% to 60% of U.S. initial public offerings (IPOs) lose absolute value over a five-year period. Historically, the median IPO stock has lost roughly 41% of its value five years after its first day of trading. Ipos are somewhat notoriously risky investments.

I remember seeing a video about this subject, since large IPOs are automatically included in index funds it is kinda of a way to extract value from passive investors. Insiders cash out before it hits the indexes, index crashes by a fraction for a %, all pensions in the country (and many overseas) pay for it. But with OpenAI and SpaceX IPOing roughly at the same time it will likely be more than fraction of a % in this…

> since large IPOs are automatically included in index funds

No, this was not allowed. Until a certain someone with deep connections to the corrupt government (coughspacexcough) changed the rules for themselves for the upcoming IPO. It's going to be.... ballistic.

Re: Anthropic raises $65B in Series H funding at $965B post-money valuation

#450

Post by jjav »

jeberle wrote: post #244
taude wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeup, no shortage of tech IPOs over the past five years that are now valued at like 5% of what they were after being dumped onto the market: ZoomInfo, Bumble, Gemini And many more that are 50% of what they were: Snowflake, Coinbase And many more that went back to private companies and then were sold off: Carbon Black, etc... I'm actually too lazy to go list out all of them. But employees, beware, of those gnarly lock…

Is there any sense in buying (out-of-the money) put options, to make sure you can taste some of that sweet lucre that your overlords are getting?

Options are not initially available. Conveniently.
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