Big Technology Podcast
00:44:14 · Alex Kantrowitz, Ranjan Roy
[00:44:14] S0: I know it would be like kind of criminal to do this, I guess. I I don't know if we've seen weirder things, but is there a chance that Amazon is giving Anthropic this discounted compute, booking it as full revenue, and that's why you see the 39% growth? Is that like a totally out to lunch conspiracy theory? Probably. [00:44:32] S1: I I mean, actually, I I don't know. Like, I'm sure could have... I feel that that would probably be pretty aggressive on the accounting side. I think... I I wouldn't worry about that as much. Again, to me, this is not... Like, the numbers were great. It's it's... But to invest and at what rich valuation are you investing? That's the question. I think they have not given enough information. Also, I have to say whoever is planning those revenue leaks is a communications genius because again, there was no surprises in them. Everything was out there. When we get 16 to 17,000,000,000 for q q three revenue, it's already out there. And we know growth is decelerating and all that's out there. So there'll be a little hubbub, but like they're they're leaking financials, like, in a pretty incredible way.
00:45:26 · Alex Kantrowitz
[00:45:26] S0: Yeah. Somebody on X named Andrew Benson started putting together the list of Who Gets Rich, a philanthropic list at 2,000,000,000,000. I think the talk is a list at 1.5. But if you assume $2,000,000,000,000 it's $199,000,000,000 I guess this is the equity breakdown to the seven controlling founders. Then there's $28,000,000,000 for Ben Mann, so I guess they would all get who's another founder who I guess is sometimes a founder, sometimes not so they'd all get 28,000,000,100 billion dollars to the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, $331,000,000,000 in employee options and RSUs. That covers 5,300 employees, an average of $62,000,000 each. But he continues when you joined really matters. And again, this is back of the envelope math. I think it's directionally accurate, but of course there could be some problems with it. But if you joined in 2023, you're looking at 110,000,000 to 400,000,000 each. If you joined in 2024, he says, which is like four forty to six forty people hired, 200,000,000 to 300,000,000 each. 2025, at least 70,000,000. 2026, 10,000,000 to 20,000,000. Imagine you got hired this year, you're already looking at 10 to $20,000,000 in compensation. You wonder why people don't leave Anthropic. Of course, part of it is the mission, but this is also a pretty good argument, don't you think?
00:46:50 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:46:50] S1: I... I'll admit, I I can't even stomach hearing these numbers working in the eye industry for a company that's doing well, and I'm happy. But, like, my god. The wealth creation is... It's actually... What's more surprising to me is what you just read. I'm actually more surprised that... And we got elections on Tuesday. I'm surprised that has not become, like, one of the biggest headlines in, like, every if you're a politician out there, you got your talking points right now. I mean, the numbers are insane. [00:47:27] S0: Listen to this. Anthropic... By the way, this is also coming from the company whose CEO said that half of white collar jobs will be Yes. Automated. Just play the two clips. That's it. This is from Anthropic will make 1,000 employees worth $100,000,000 at least $100,000,000 at a $2,000,000,000,000 market cap. There are 11,000 Americans worth with $100,000,000 in investable assets. So something like one in 12 Americans with $100,000,000 liquid will be from Anthropic, and if you add in OpenAI, it could be one in seven. [00:48:00] S1: It is shocking. Again, when I saw those, literally am like, I am speechless. [00:48:08] S0: I have two reactions to it. I mean, of course, they've earned it. They've built to a degree, right? They've built this technology that is going to be has a good chance to be world changing, put it that way. But the other side is like, they're also telling you that it might kill you, and they're going protect you. And it's like, really? [00:48:27] S1: Well then
00:48:27 · Ranjan Roy, Alex Kantrowitz
[00:48:27] S1: Well then [00:48:28] S0: You're it's gonna potentially wipe us all out and you have to develop it because you can develop it safely. But then you're also walking away with some of like the richest people in history. [00:48:37] S1: No, but that's what I've always said. And that's actually, again, why politicians, you got four days right now. This is a pretty easy talking point and you might as well push it but I also actually on the existential risks to humanity, I also have to admit I actually wasn't that interested in the whole risk factor side of it. I know I saw you tweeting them out and you were discussing them with Dan, but, like [00:49:04] S0: Yeah. [00:49:04] S1: To me, they were... I don't know. I... They almost just feel like they're, like, just fucking with us. Like [00:49:09] S0: Dude, I have a conspiracy theory on that. Alright. They had the longest risk factor section I've ever seen in my whole life. I tweeted 80 of them, and then I was like... I tweeted one post with 80 of them. And the funny thing is, I stopped at 80. I don't even remember how many there were because there were so many. And I think what they did was they wanted to bury the existential risk factor in the most boilerplate shit imaginable so you would miss that and just be like, Oh, well, they have all these other capital risks.
00:49:09 · Alex Kantrowitz, Ranjan Roy
[00:49:09] S0: Dude, I have a conspiracy theory on that. Alright. They had the longest risk factor section I've ever seen in my whole life. I tweeted 80 of them, and then I was like... I tweeted one post with 80 of them. And the funny thing is, I stopped at 80. I don't even remember how many there were because there were so many. And I think what they did was they wanted to bury the existential risk factor in the most boilerplate shit imaginable so you would miss that and just be like, Oh, well, they have all these other capital risks. [00:49:39] S1: But we know the existential risk and everyone covered the existential risk. I guess to me that was like, normally S1 risk factors, the whole point is to recognize risks that exist that especially likely disclose things that investors don't already understand and legally also that you are recognizing them. So, I mean, it has to be in there, but he's been saying it for years. They've all
00:50:06 · Alex Kantrowitz
[00:50:06] S0: been No, just saying it was so long that they were just like, All right, you'll get exhausted and no one will pay it. Well, anyway, I think you're right that they have... It's been talked to death. All right, here's a risk factor for us to talk about before we leave today, which is the price... Know, we talked about a price war coming for LLMs and man has it happened. This is from Max Wolfe. OpenAI Anthropic cut their LLM prices by up to 80% within a few months. Why? I'll just read a little bit for Max. 07/30/2026, OpenAI announces that they're going to cut GPT 5.6 Luna by 80%. The price is 08/10/2026: Anthropic says their temporary Sonnet five price cut is permanent. 08/21/2026: OpenAI announces they are cutting the price of GPT-5.6 SOL by 20%. September 2026: OpenAI announced GPT-six SOL at a shocking price that halves the input and output price relative to the temporary discounted GPT-5.6 SOL. They simultaneously released GPT-six Luna also at half the input and output prices of the previous version. On the same exact day Anthropic announced Claude Opus 5.5 and the total cost reduction for that max calculates was 40 to 60% for a model that's even better than Fable five. Is not just a price war. Is not just the sorry, this is not the rumor of the price war. This is the price war. Some reasons for Max. He says, If you've been testing agents with new LLMs as they are released, it can be very difficult to differentiate them outside of subjective vibes. Since last November that launched the hypergrowth of Vagintic LLMs, the models have become more of a commodity, and it's now trivial to try a new model on your code base with just a toggle harness like OpenCode or using something like OpenRouter. As a result, there is little moat. That's just part of the reason that he gives. We talked a lot about the commoditization of LLMs and how that could lead to a price war. Is this it actually happening, Ranjan?