Comment by aurareturn
16 hours ago
I don't think OpenAI or Anthropic are predicting that the AI market is going to collapse. In fact, I think both are bullish that the public still isn't pricing in exponential growth.
I think what is happening is that OpenAI is racing to IPO before Anthropic because their growth isn't as impressive. If you are the weaker company, you should IPO first to lock up the cash.
I can’t imagine them actually being bullish about exponential growth, when both seem instead to be stagnating. I’m more inclined to believe they’re just maintaining a level of hype in public because that’s what you do.
> when both seem instead to be stagnating
What's the evidence for Anthropic stagnating?
They’ve claimed a big revenue run rate for this quarter. But it’s non-GAAP, so you kind of have to assume shenanigans. Earlier this year they were telling a court their revenue was like 1/4 of what they had told the public. I consider the number they came up with when they had to worry about committing perjury to be more trustworthy (because I’m a pill), so that would also indicate shenanigans. My guess is they are inflating that revenue run rate figure by booking token pre-payments from enterprise contracts now instead of spreading it over time as GAAP would mandate. And at the same time their big enterprise clients are talking about scaling back their usage.
So we’ve got a combination of signs that they’ve been inflating their revenue growth, and signs that their customers are losing their appetite for contributing to that revenue growth. I suppose it’s not a slam dunk, but it feels to me like as strong an indicator as one could hope for a private blitzscaler startup like this.
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The same evidence that they are growing. Tea leaves.
The AI market might not collapse but the stock market could! Even if the AI companies only need to downgrade their investments and a healthy correction is underway, a fire sale of AI-related stocks will bring the stock market to its knees.
I don't really see this happening in the way that most people are envisioning. It's clear that Anthropic and OpenAI have found product market fit. They've gotten companies hooked and personally I cannot go back to the old way of coding.
However, I do see a bit of reduced demand for hardware and datacenters which could reprice these companies to more sane multiples. There will be winners and losers.
But will you need overpriced Codex and Claude? Most business code is crappy SaaS and glorified CRUD apps & I can build those with Sonnet / DeepSeek just fine …
What are they offering the public (not me and you writing code in our free time)?
They are offering the public an opportunity to become shareholders and they are giving their investors and employees liquidity.
I mean as a long-term product, not as a offer to join a hype cycle.
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where the heck are you seeing OpenAI racing to IPO before anthropic?
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> youre saying they will both become the economy
They said exponential and you read unlimited.
An exponent on $1T isn’t unlimited, but it is an uninvestible thesis in my book.
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