6 things that must be true for Anthropic's IPO of $2 trillion to be achievable (as the largest IPO ever)

Anthropic went from $9bn of annualised revenue in December to $65bn by the end of July, and it's expected to list in October at close to $2 trillion - the highest price any company has ever carried into a stock market debut.

If you work backwards from that valuation backwards and it has to be earning about $1.2 trillion a year within a decade. The entire world spends $1.5 trillion on software.

So the Anthropic IPO isn't a bet on software at all. It's a bet on wages.

In this episode of In The Loop, I'm putting a number on the six things that all have to be true for a $2 trillion Anthropic valuation to make sense - using their IPO as a way of understanding the strategies of the biggest AI companies in the world.

⏭️ Episode highlights

(01:00) – Why nobody in AI talks about software any more

(02:00) – $9bn to $65bn in seven months, and the caveat

(03:10) – Anthropic's own written date for powerful AI

(04:20) – One in five firms, 78% of the workforce

(05:20) – The 60 pence in every pound that goes back out

(06:20) – Memory costs more than the processor

(07:30) – Three of the four hyperscalers are burning cash

(08:40) – The one line to find in the prospectus