If you're getting flashbacks to 1999, you're not alone. Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, just filed confidentially for an IPO at a $900 billion valuation—and somehow, that's not even the craziest part.
The company is joining SpaceX and OpenAI in what's being called "a once-in-a-generation moneymaking moment on Wall Street." Translation: three massive IPOs are hitting the market in the same year, all with valuations that would make late-90s dot-com promoters blush.
Here's what you need to know: Anthropic just crossed a $47 billion annual revenue run rate in May, according to The New York Times. That sounds impressive until you realize the company isn't saying whether it's actually profitable. Revenue run rate is Wall Street speak for "if everything stays exactly this good forever, here's what we'd make."
It never stays exactly that good forever.
What makes Anthropic different from the usual AI hype? They're focused on coding tools—software that automatically writes computer code for developers. That's a real business with real customers paying real money. But is it worth $900 billion? That would make it more valuable than Walmart, ExxonMobil, and Johnson & Johnson combined.
Let's put this in context. Remember the business section's stories about Google and Amazon's "AI profits" actually coming from their Anthropic stakes, not operations? And Alphabet raising $80 billion to fund AI infrastructure? This is all connected.
The big tech companies are pouring money into AI startups, marking up those investments on their balance sheets, then using those paper gains to justify more spending. Meanwhile, the AI startups are using that funding to justify billion-dollar valuations when they go public. It's a circular reference error, except nobody's hitting refresh.
