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Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows AI vision, surging costs

143 points · 150 comments · 6thbit

  1. camdenreslink · · focus · HN ↗
    Some of these numbers are crazy. The scale of them is hard to comprehend.

    - $42 billion net loss in 2025

    - $518 billion in infrastructure obligations coming up (EDIT)

    - 1/4 of revenue coming from 2 customers

    1. kamranjon · · focus · HN ↗
      does anyone understand what this part actually means?

      "The near-$42 billion net loss included a roughly $34 billion accounting charge that reflected an increase in the estimated value of financing that could eventually turn into Anthropic shares, rather than money the company spent running its business."

      1. runarberg · · focus · HN ↗
        If you truly believe that the cost of financing should not be included in your net loss (I don‘t know anything about money, so I don‘t know whether you should or not) $8 billion in net loss is also mindboggingly large number.

        As a member of the working class who believes this money is coming from systemic exploitation of the working classes, I hate it that Anthrhopic can just loose $8 billion like that. Those $8 billion could have been used elsewhere, including to mitigate the effects of the climate disaster, to educate the youth, towards social security, or to increase the wages of the working people who could have used it to pay rent, or go to the cinema, or a family trip to visit their grandma who lives in Wyoming.

        1. trollbridge · · focus · HN ↗
          Okay. About 50 million households in America earning under $50k.

          8 billion is enough to give each of them $160. Great, all of Anthropic’s spending is enough to give each family a trip to Texas Roadhouse including dessert.

          1. hajile · · focus · HN ↗
            34.5M Americans below the poverty line. Divide out that $8B and it's a little over $230 per person.

            Have you ever been in poverty? I grew up that way and the then-equivalent of $230 would have meant not skipping Christmas when I was 6. It would have meant a full refrigerator, gas for the car for a couple of months, or so many other things.

        2. anomaly_ · · focus · HN ↗
          they don't light it on fire. it circulates in the economy. plenty of working class people doing enormously well from the data centre, chip production build out.
          1. runarberg · · focus · HN ↗
            Money would circulate at least as much if used for climate solutions and even more so if given to workers. The AI build out is not benefitting workers, like hardly at all, it creates a dismal amount of jobs, and is raising utility prices for many of us.
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