George Hammond, Financial Times (on Ars Technica):

Anthropic investors expect the AI startup to float at a valuation of $2 trillion or more in October, a dizzying figure that would eclipse SpaceX and make the AI lab’s debut the largest-ever initial public offering.

Half a dozen of the company’s backers told the FT that Anthropic’s rapidly rising revenue would enable it to more than double its current valuation in a planned autumn float. […]

Investors expect the Claude maker’s annualized revenue to be between $100 billion and $120 billion by the end of 2026.

Anthropic is a five-year-old company that was recently valued at $965 billion and might eventually perhaps maybe reach $120 billion in annualized revenue soon-ish.

Apple is a 50-year-old company that was recently valued at $5 trillion (currently $4.5 trillion) and made $109 billion last quarter.

Yet I’m expected to believe that come October, Anthropic could be worth around half of Apple, with roughly one fourth the revenue (they hope!) and no track record of, you know, actual profitability?

And I thought the SpaceX IPO was the best example of the greater fool theory.