Anthropic's Financials Revealed — The Losses Are Stunning

Summary
Ed Elson hosts Prof G Markets (September 30, 2026), examining recent market movements and high-profile corporate developments. The episode features in-depth interviews with Paul Kedrosky (Managing Partner at SK Ventures) on Anthropic’s leaked draft S-1 prospectus and its projected $2 trillion valuation, and Jay Ritter (University of Florida) on Oura's decision to pause its planned IPO despite being profitable.

What is shown

• [00:51] Overview of market indicators: declines across the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow; 30-year Treasury yields at their highest levels since 2002; 10-year Treasury yield nearing 5.3%; Brent crude down to ~$102/barrel; Apple stock down ~3%.
• [01:22] Analysis of Anthropic’s leaked draft S-1 prospectus, displaying graphics detailing 2025 financial figures ($4.6B revenue, $8B operating loss, $42B net loss).
• [02:08] Interview with Paul Kedrosky discussing Anthropic’s revenue concentration, inference vs. training costs, and competitive pressures from commoditized token production in China.
• [16:56] Coverage of smart-ring maker Oura postponing its IPO despite strong growth metrics.
• [17:54] Interview with Jay Ritter analyzing why late-stage consumer hardware companies struggle to achieve requested public market valuations, drawing parallels to GoPro, Peloton, and SoulCycle.
• [26:57] Monologue discussing the Premier League ruling against Manchester City for financial breaches totaling £900 million.

Claims & numbers

• Ed Elson reports that Anthropic’s leaked draft S-1 showed $4.6 billion in revenue for 2025 (up over 1,000% year-over-year), an operating loss of $8 billion, and a net loss of $42 billion, of which roughly $34 billion was a non-cash charge tied to revaluing financing instruments.
• Elson states that roughly one-third of Anthropic's S-1 is devoted to risk factors, including existential risk to humanity and customer concentration (nearly 25% of revenue from two clients; Kedrosky notes leaks suggesting six clients account for ~60%).
• Anthropic is reportedly targeting a record $2 trillion valuation in an IPO planned for November 2026.
• Kedrosky argues that while frontier AI labs claim to be cash-flow positive on an inference-only basis, model training costs are an ongoing operational necessity, meaning labs cannot simply strip training costs out to manufacture profitability without losing their technological moat.
• Kedrosky notes that if frontier model companies cease training to focus purely on inference, they risk becoming commoditized token producers undercut by massive subsidized Chinese computing power.
• Elson and Ritter state that Oura was planning to raise up to $2.2 billion with an order book four times oversubscribed and projected 90% revenue growth for the year, but paused its IPO citing valuation skepticism and unfavorable market conditions.
• Ritter notes that historically, the majority of companies that postpone their IPOs ultimately never complete a public listing and often get acquired instead.
• Elson states Manchester City misrepresented £900 million across financial statements between 2009 and 2018 while winning eight Premier League titles.

Notable quotes

• [00:19] Paul Kedrosky: "When you look around the poker table and wonder who the sucker is, it's you. This is not a financing event anymore. What's really going on is people are unloading shares."
• [05:12] Paul Kedrosky: "It's this old joke we used to call it when I in my analyst days as 'earnings before bad things.' If you let me get away with characterizing my earnings before bad things, my earnings look really good."
• [19:05] Jay Ritter: "There's a price at which a great company is not a great investment."

Assessment
This video is a polished financial news analysis and podcast discussion from Prof G Markets, combining verified reporting on leaked filings and regulatory rulings with guest commentary. The discussion relies on reported figures from Anthropic's leaked S-1 draft without presenting the document directly on screen, clearly framing the financial assessments and future valuation projections as market analysis rather than confirmed company releases.

Described by gemini-3.8-flash on 2026-09-30 from the video's audio and frames.