Big Technology Podcast
00:28:02 · Ranjan Roy
[00:28:02] S1: I think that they have to. I agree. For for for the sake of everyone and for the sake of the industry, they kinda have to, but also from... For themselves. I mean, we had gone back and forth on Twitter a little bit where you were talking about how like, you know, you had your good q three, your your record q two, a little bit of a nice amendment on q three without the full picture. But like everything, every headwind is kicking in right now. So to me, that normally means you shouldn't go out because in reality like that is actually asking retail investors to hold the bag and it's like, let's let everyone cash out and have others actually own that risk and hold that risk while we enrich ourselves. So I think, I still think that's not a great way to look at it but I think, I mean think about it like the initial $2,000,000,000,000 was all off of that Q2 and kind of that momentum in those growth rates. Already we had talk and it was going down to 1,500,000,000,000 now. There's reporting yesterday it could be between one point two and one point three. I I... Do you think if it falls below 1,000,000,000,000 in terms of what they're seeing appetite around? Do you think you... Do you pause? Do you stop the process? Because in reality, like, this is all momentum. Anthropic had a historic eight month period, and is still a very, very successful business. But like, this story will never be the same again. It won't. So
00:29:37 · Alex Kantrowitz, Ranjan Roy
[00:29:37] S0: I think you go out. I think you still go out. I mean, as you're saying, and as I said, yesterday on x and you came and fought me on it. You're gonna go IPO with this unbelievable growth surge, the token maxing era, a bit of a slowdown in q three, but not terrible, and a big October. So however much, but we don't know it's the way that [00:30:03] S1: it was October. [00:30:04] S0: Yeah, a supposed big October, right? I think I think if you remember, if you pause, what you're doing is your the growth rate will inevitably slow from this initial s one flip because because the growth has been extraordinary and law of large numbers, you can't keep that up forever. And you also have, and I think this is potentially underrated. You have OpenAI, which has made this big enterprise push, which is doing well in enterprise. And which may... Which I think most likely has more compute than Anthropic does. Because remember, over the past year, we've talked about how Anthro... OpenAI bet much more on compute and took this riskier what Dario would say YOLO path. And in an era where like the cost to build data centers are higher, the political obstacles to build data centers are higher. Open AI is potentially set up to go on a nice little run here. And if you're Anthropic, do you really want to wait until that run is over? Or your your mid run to then like, say, okay, we're gonna now go with our delayed IPO. I don't think Anthropic has any choice but to go out now.
00:31:10 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:31:10] S1: I agree. I agree. I don't think they have a choice. It's still crazy to me because again, IPOs and buying a stock is supposed to be forward looking, not backward looking. The incredible growth only is interesting if you're supposed to extrapolate that out that incredible growth. If the idea is holy shit, you had an incredible run of growth and that is gonna be declining, so we need to get out to the market and have others buy our stock, does not make sense to me. I'm not saying it's not gonna happen. Markets have gotten pretty weird for a while now, but but I I agree that, like, from a purely self interested, like, just what matters to every individual at that company, they need to go out and fast. And I also agree, like remember, I mean, Anthropic was nowhere relative to OpenAI just two years ago. Things moved so fast and changed so fast that the entire narrative could shift for them very quickly. [00:32:17] S0: So SpaceX is at $1,800,000,000,000. I think Anthropic can pull off 1.5, even though it's like slightly different businesses. If SpaceX hasn't been, you know, I mean, slammed harder than it... Then... Well, it's... Oh, it was... Oh, it's trading underneath its IPO price, actually. And also at $1.33 now. [00:32:37] S1: SpaceX. Has one thing that is very different than Anthropic. Elon Musk and the greatest capital raiser of all time and that is his gift and he can kind of like will the retail investor community better than anyone else and Anthropic does not have that. So I still think I don't think that's the right corollary there.
00:32:37 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:32:37] S1: SpaceX. Has one thing that is very different than Anthropic. Elon Musk and the greatest capital raiser of all time and that is his gift and he can kind of like will the retail investor community better than anyone else and Anthropic does not have that. So I still think I don't think that's the right corollary there. [00:32:59] S0: Let's just do our bottom line on the Anthropic IPO. Do you think it goes out? It's supposed to go out week of November 16. That's what people are saying. Do you think that happens? And if so, what do you think the valuation is? [00:33:10] S1: It's so tough. I mean, I think we're gonna see a lot more volatility over the next three to four weeks. Definitely. I think people as we said, we don't know already just that uncertainty the first ten, fifteen minutes of us kind of trying to understand where things are right now and realizing we have no clue is how investors everywhere are gonna feel right now. And if the market keeps tanking, that makes the decision to go out really, really difficult. And I don't know. I still think even... Yeah. Even like anything above 1,000,000,000,000, think they should be very, very relieved and happy with. But also remember, when we keep throwing these numbers out, that assumes there are buyers on the other end. If the market is tanking, like, the retail investor community, like, the willingness to jump into a rich valuation just because the stock was hyped, that has worked for the last number of years. That's gonna be the first thing to go.
00:33:10 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:33:10] S1: It's so tough. I mean, I think we're gonna see a lot more volatility over the next three to four weeks. Definitely. I think people as we said, we don't know already just that uncertainty the first ten, fifteen minutes of us kind of trying to understand where things are right now and realizing we have no clue is how investors everywhere are gonna feel right now. And if the market keeps tanking, that makes the decision to go out really, really difficult. And I don't know. I still think even... Yeah. Even like anything above 1,000,000,000,000, think they should be very, very relieved and happy with. But also remember, when we keep throwing these numbers out, that assumes there are buyers on the other end. If the market is tanking, like, the retail investor community, like, the willingness to jump into a rich valuation just because the stock was hyped, that has worked for the last number of years. That's gonna be the first thing to go. [00:34:16] S0: I think it goes out... I'll call it November 19, and I'm gonna say 1,300,000,000,000. And it'll it'll be a good good outcome for this company. And, course, it's just the beginning. Well, not the beginning. It's the middle of the story. Right? It's not the end. Okay. [00:34:34] S1: Week is not thanks... Oh, no. It's week before Thanksgiving. Alright? [00:34:37] S0: Week before Thanksgiving. Yeah. I mean, I've just canceled a trip to the Bay Area that week in anticipation for the thing happening. [00:34:45] S1: So That's why I asked.
00:34:45 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:34:45] S1: So That's why I asked. [00:34:47] S0: Let's see if I'm right or not. I'm gonna try to manifest it. Manifest it. Alright. [00:34:52] S1: What Do it for Alex. [00:34:53] S0: One last thing before [00:34:53] S1: Alex and his travel schedule. He's gonna be in New York ready Yes. Right by the stock exchange, ready to go. [00:35:00] S0: I don't wanna have to bring this seat anywhere else. Okay? It's a big chair. [00:35:05] S1: You need to get the... Get a chair like that back at home. That thing, it's regal. You said royal regal. It brings a different feel. [00:35:13] S0: Describe it? [00:35:13] S1: It's a [00:35:14] S0: I think you need to describe it for audio. [00:35:16] S1: It's a kind of reddish tan. Again, looks like it very well could have been nicked as they say from Buckingham Palace. There's kind of those two wings on the side that stick out. A chair you would smoke a cigar on, smoke a pipe on, that you would sign a contract colonizing parts of India back in the eighteen hundreds as Lord Mountbatten. That is definitely a chair that did some colonialism at some point to me. [00:35:55] S0: Well, I can tell you I I will be doing doing none of these things. [00:35:58] S1: So No cigars or colonialism abilities. Today. Not tonight, at least.