Damodaran Publishes Article Valuing Anthropic at $1.475 Trillion
Aswath Damodaran, a valuation professor at New York University, published a long article valuing Anthropic at $1.475 trillion. He noted that Anthropic's first-half revenue was about 14 times that of the same period last year, but growth slowed in the third quarter because OpenAI took share and Anthropic lacked sufficient compute; the $80.7 billion first-half book loss mainly came from $72 billion in non-cash bond expenses, while the actual operating loss was slightly over $8 billion, and Anthropic says it achieved operating profitability last quarter. He believes the biggest risk is the compute commitment exceeding $600 billion, and that 7 co-founders hold 50.1% voting power through a single share class.
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Damodaran's breakdown of Anthropic's valuation, viewed alongside the $80.7B book loss and the $600B compute commitment, offers a perspective for understanding its financial structure.
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Dean of Valuation Professor Aswath Damodaran just published a long post valuing Anthropic at $1.475T.
He says Anthropic’s voting setup, where 7 co-founders hold 50.1% of votes through a single share, “would put Kim Jong Un to shame.”
> Anthropic is growing fast but slowing: first-half revenue was about 14x a year earlier, then third-quarter growth cooled as OpenAI won share and Anthropic ran short of compute.
> The headline $80.7B first-half loss is mostly a $72B non-cash bond charge; the real operating loss was just over $8B, and Anthropic says it made an operating profit last quarter.
> The biggest risk is over $600B in compute commitments, a fixed bill owed even if growth stalls, while founders hold 50.1% of votes, leaving public shareholders little say.