Ed Zitron on Anthropic's IPO (S-1), AI Debt, and Counterparty Risk
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This episode is brought to you by Sirmaya Partners, who manages the return to tangible ETF LENS, ticker l e n s, the Sirmaya thematic ETF built for a return to tangibles. Learn more at sirmayaetf.com and see the show notes for disclosures. Let's get into it. I am joined once again by Ed Zitron of the Better Offline podcast and the Where's Your Ed newsletter. Ed, great to see you again. Welcome back. Great to be back. Ed, the first time I had you on, you talked about your work on OpenAI's financials, which you found in 2025. We now have the financials for Anthropic. They just were leaked. Reute
Well, I had a good chuckle. That was the first thing I I went... I had a chortle. But then I went and actually did the maths. Anthropic, at least in 2025, was a worst business in OpenAI. It burned two... Spent $2.75 to make a dollar, and OpenAI did $2.60 based on my own reporting. So Anthropic burned eight... They lost $8,000,000,000 on $4,600,000,000 of revenue, but it's really the finer details that make it interesting. So about 47% of Anthropic's revenue came through sales from Google and Amazon reselling their models, which is a worrying concentration risk considering Amazon fed $50,000,00
And just how much worse were those numbers compared to to OpenAI?
They spent two dollars and seventy five cents to make a buck. OpenAI did $2.60. So kind of the same, but Anthropic just mildly worse. And the big thing is, and while I didn't have in the numbers I got about OpenAI, the breakdown of where the revenue came from, we didn't have the same percentage thing because that 47% disclosure is strictly something that Reuters got as a result of the prospectus. I don't think that half of OpenAI's revenue came from Microsoft Azure. And I think that people need to realize, sure, it's a counterparty relationship, it's very standard, what have you, but it is sti
So a very high percentage of Anthropix revenue is not from people going to cloud.com or Yes. Or businesses going to cloud.com.
It's through Amazon and Google's reselling. Now there's nothing I must be clear. I'm a hater. Don't get me wrong, but I want to be fair here. That is very standard for like cloud software companies. That high of a concentration, though, I don't think that there's any comparison I've seen. And it also means that their success is contingent on Google and Amazon's ability to sell their stuff, which they seem to be doing fine with. It's just odd. It's very odd. Yeah.
I mean, the narrative was the exact opposite that the risk for OpenAI is concentration. The whole thing of Anthropic is that it's less concentrated. That's that's the narrative.
In theory. And I mean I mean, people are people are already saying, well, who cares about these numbers? 2026 will be better. We've had these stories about anthropic hitting profitability, but it's on an adjusted basis, which means it is not profitable. So I mean, people are gonna push part and I've heard too many boosters saying, oh, just ignore these twenty twenty five numbers. 2026 will be better. The thing is, is they better be amazing compared to this because if they're not, this is a company in distress. I'm also very curious how, let's take them at their word in these very clearly dodgy
Well, let's see what what are what
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