Good morning. A tech IPO? In this economy?
Well, yes, actually. So let’s get right to it. —Andrew Nusca
P.S. Anyone check on Sam lately?
Thoughts? Suggestions? Hot tip? Drop me a line.
THE BIG STORY
What Anthropic’s IPO prospectus reveals
Anthropic filed the paperwork for its hotly anticipated public stock offering on Monday, providing the first detailed look at its finances in a voluminous, and at times slightly surreal, document that describes a coming “age of miracles” alongside warnings of “existential risks to society.”
The S-1 filing, which starts the countdown clock to what’s expected to be one of the largest IPOs of all time, reveals a company whose revenue grew an astounding 1,300% in the first half of the year, totaling $16.3 billion, thanks to booming demand for its Claude family of AI products—along with massive computing expenses and deep losses.
“We expect our costs will increase over time and our losses will continue as we expect to invest significant resources towards growing our business and operating as a public company,” Anthropic warned in the S-1’s lengthy list of risk factors.
The San Francisco-based company, founded in 2021, had 5,300 employees at the end of September, with power firmly concentrated in the hands of its seven cofounders thanks to a special multi-class share structure.
Anthropic plans to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker “ANT” and is expected to target a Thanksgiving week debut. The offering means that Anthropic will list shares before arch-rival OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, from which Anthropic’s founders defected five years ago to launch their company.
While the filing does not specify the price or the number of shares Anthropic intends to sell, as is customary at this stage in the process, media reports in recent weeks have said the company is targeting a valuation somewhere between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.
That could put it above Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which was valued at $1.77 trillion in its June IPO. (Some investors have even predicted Anthropic could pop in valuation to as high as $2.4 trillion in market value once it starts trading.)
Anthropic recorded a net loss of $80.7 billion for the six months through June 2026. That figure is one of the largest half-year losses any company has ever recorded. But most of that loss—$72.4 billion—is due to an accounting charge to reflect the increased value of convertible notes Anthropic has issued.
The flood of red ink is less severe on an operating basis: Anthropic’s operating losses narrowed to $693 million in the six months through June, compared to $2.1 billion for the same period of 2025. Anthropic said that on an adjusted basis, it was profitable in the first half of the year, making $1.6 billion in operating income, or about a 10% profit margin.
In the second quarter of 2026, Anthropic spent $5.6 billion on compute while generating $11.6 billion in revenue, which it said means the company gets $2.08 of revenue for every dollar it spends on compute.
Despite the massive cost of training and running advanced AI models, Anthropic said it was making significant efficiency improvements to reduce the amount of computing power used by its models.
“Our aim,” the company’s cofounders wrote in an 8-page letter at the top of the prospectus, “is to help humankind chart a safe course through this technological evolution, open new frontiers of discovery, and bring forth an age of miracles.” —Beatrice Nolan
THE BLIND BOX
“We believe that our seven co-founders are distinctly equipped to be stewards of our mission.”
THE RUNDOWN
—Microsoft offers buyouts to 30% of workforce in a transition to greatness intelligence.
—Apple revamps iPad mini: A20 Pro chip, OLED display, IP67 water resistance, $699+.
—Cohere: Alibaba’s Qwen 3.8 tried to upload a file to a cloud storage container in Beijing.
—DoorDash may buy Instacart for $17 billion as soon as this week.
—Bedrock Robotics raises $600 million for autonomous construction machines.
—Nevis: Former Revolut execs raise $70 million to tackle a financial advisor shortage.
—Cloud gaming: No longer the cheaper alternative.
—Anthropic’s risk factors: A feud with the Pentagon and…the end of humanity?
THE PARTING SHOT
Really, was there any other choice today?