Anthropic goes public — Boom or Bust?

12 minutes ago

4 min read

As if AI hasn’t been in the news enough lately. Rogue agents, epochal maths discoveries. Well now one of the real big boys asks the public if they want a piece of the action.

(First published on my Substack where you can get #NerdNews, marvellous maths and general geekery.)

(‘Kaching’: created by the author via midjourney)

To market, to market.

NerdNews readers know I love my mathematics, and I’m reasonably handy at talking about plenty of science topics. But when it comes to the ‘dismal science’ of economics, I’m not that hot.

I think, I might have done three unit economics in the HSC, but I genuinely can’t remember if I did that additional third unit. So it goes without saying, absolutely NOTHING in this NerdNews counts as financial advice. I’m as confused as anyone, and it seems most of the experts, about what to make of Anthropic’s landmark S-1 filing.

All the fun of an S-1.

Let’s start with the basics. What is an S-1?

Any company that wants to sell shares to the American public for the first time has to file an S-1. It sets out the company’s finances, how it makes its money, the risks it faces, who runs it and what it plans to do with the money it raises. Anyone thinking about buying shares is meant to read it first, and the company is legally on the hook for what it says.

“It is basically them kind of revealing themselves on the public stage and saying, ‘Here’s what our company looks like, warts and all.’ ” — Kevin Roos.

“They’re standing naked in front of the world saying ‘Judge me’" — Casey Newton. Machine Gods Podcast 28 October, 2026.

Well, Anthropic filed its much-awaited S-1 last week, and for one of the world’s most scrutinised companies, it’s the first time these financial details have been officially made public. Not surprisingly, industry tongues are a-wagging.

Oh and you might want to read the fine print:

“Sufficiently advanced AI systems could … pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity, particularly if such systems were misused, replicated, weaponised, or allowed to operate with a high degree of autonomy,” - Anthropic S-1.

What do the experts think?

What I’m truly stunned by, with news of such magnitude, is how diverse the opinions are. You have opinions at two extremes. This is finally proof that these engines of the economy are great cash generators going forward. This is the latest in a shell game that could bring down the world economy. And you’ve got everything in between.

In many ways, Anthropic’s roughly 400-page S-1 raised as many questions as it answered.

Let’s take a sample of some of the opinions swirling around this hot topic.

Ezra Klein recently hosted two opposing view points on his New York Times podcast, “What if the AI economy crashes"?

Ka-ching, ka-ching, show me the money.

Tech analyst Azeem Azhar, from Exponential View, told Klein, in his lilting British tonuge, that many of the hyperscalars. (think Amazion, Microsoft, Google) are seeing rapid returns on the billions they are investing into AI infrastructure, and that actual customer demand for global and American enterprises remains very strong.

Similarly on Machine Gods, veteran tech columnist Kevin Roos felt the S-1 reflected well on Anthropic.

“Now, yes, they cannot keep growing at 10X every single year until the end of time, but I think this is a reason for people who maybe have been skeptical about whether these are real companies that are making real money to sort of look through the cold, sober facts of Anthropic's S-1 and think, ‘Well, what if I'm wrong? What if this actually is something real and an extraordinary happening?’ ” — Kevin Roos, Machine Gods pod.

But this view is certainly not universally shared.

A fool and his money are soon...

Taking the far more cautious, at times outright hostile route, with Ezra Klein, was venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky who argues that massive capital expendiiture cycles like that we are witnessing around AI consistently lead to over-building, to inflated asset prices, and to economic malaise. He cites AI as the modern-day version of the capital plunges that accompanied electrification and the rail roll-out of the 19th century.

(‘Feeding the Beast’: created by the author via midjourney)

Kedrosky feels that this build is powered by leverage (read ‘heavily funded by debt’) and that a huge portion of household net worth is now tied up in a small number of AI giants who dominate the US stock market. If the floats of Anthropic and OpenAI see the instant multi millionaires cash out, this could trigger a wall of selling.

“Everyone is building data centres, and they are all renting space at each others’ data centres, and charging each other different rates … is this all just a circle jerk?” — Jon Stewart, The Weekly Show Podcast with Ed Zitron. (quote paraphrased)

“The boom is hitting two walls at once: Financing and public hatred” — Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate in Economics, Substack.

So Spence - what’d’ya think?

Even by the standard of NerdNews, which in profiling great moments in AI and science often speaks to nuance and a degree of caution, this one seems to be a grey area. Given how much is at stake when Anthropic, and perhaps soon OpenAI, go public, I’m fascinated by how divided expert opinion is on this topic.

There’s one thing that can’t be doubted: the public launch of these mega tech firms is a landmark moment in the AI revolution.

Whether you invest or not, keep your eyes on the market. Grab your popcorn. I don’t think this will be easy to turn our eyes away from.