Anthropic has told investors it is profitable for a second straight quarter. The number holds only if you set aside the cost of building the next version of Claude.
According to the Financial Times, the company handed the figures to a small group of backers, even as markets await the company’s planned Nasdaq listing.
Anthropic’s Profit Claim Excludes Amazon’s Cut and Training Costs
Based on the report, adjusted operating income is positive again this quarter. That measure strips out stock-based compensation, the equity Anthropic pays researchers instead of cash.
Gross margins run above 80%. That figure is calculated before two things:
- First, the cut Amazon and other partners take for reselling Claude.
- Second, the cost of training models.
In plain terms, Anthropic says it is profitable on the Claude models it has already built. It is not claiming to be profitable on the work of building the next one. That work is what the IPO is selling.
Training is not a side project. It is how a new Claude comes to exist.
In April, Anthropic committed to multiple gigawatts of chip capacity with Google and Broadcom. Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao called it the firm’s “most significant compute commitment to date.”
Revenue is growing fast enough to carry it. Sales hit $11.5 billion in the second quarter, 14 times a year earlier. Joey Brookhart, lead AI analyst at SemiAnalysis, said that growth alone is a barrier to rivals.
“If you continue to operate at these margins and growth rates, it will be so hard to compete.”
Amodei Called for an AI Slowdown Two Days Earlier
Chief Executive Dario Amodei published an essay on Saturday asking the industry to slow down. The profit figures reached investors days later.
“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.”
Chip stocks fell the next trading day. Michael Burry, who shorted the 2008 housing market, called the timing self-serving.
“IPOs need hype & puffery; ‘we are so awesome it could become dangerous’ is hype & puffery”
The Anthropic IPO prospectus will be the test because a public filing has to show the bottom line, training costs and all.