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Comment by aurareturn | Hacker News Reader

I don't think OpenAI or Anthropic are predicting that the AI market is going to collapse. In fact, I think both are bullish that the public still isn't pricing in exponential growth.

I think what is happening is that OpenAI is racing to IPO before Anthropic because their growth isn't as impressive. If you are the weaker company, you should IPO first to lock up the cash.

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I can’t imagine them actually being bullish about exponential growth, when both seem instead to be stagnating. I’m more inclined to believe they’re just maintaining a level of hype in public because that’s what you do.

> when both seem instead to be stagnating

What's the evidence for Anthropic stagnating?

The same evidence that they are growing. Tea leaves.

They’ve claimed a big revenue run rate for this quarter. But it’s non-GAAP, so you kind of have to assume shenanigans. Earlier this year they were telling a court their revenue was like 1/4 of what they had told the public. I consider the number they came up with when they had to worry about committing perjury to be more trustworthy (because I’m a pill), so that would also indicate shenanigans. My guess is they are inflating that revenue run rate figure by booking token pre-payments from enterprise contracts now instead of spreading it over time as GAAP would mandate. And at the same time their big enterprise clients are talking about scaling back their usage.

So we’ve got a combination of signs that they’ve been inflating their revenue growth, and signs that their customers are losing their appetite for contributing to that revenue growth. I suppose it’s not a slam dunk, but it feels to me like as strong an indicator as one could hope for a private blitzscaler startup like this.

Oh, to be clear, I'm not saying there is evidence they're all a-okay. I just hadn't seen any evidence that they were stalling out. (I have for OpenAI.)

  Earlier this year they were telling a court their revenue was like 1/4 of what they had told the public.

Got a source?

"Although the company has generated substantial revenue since entering the commercial market—exceeding $5 billion to date—it has nonetheless had to raise more than $60 billion in outside capital to fund its operations".

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.46...

That doesn't prove this qouote:

  Earlier this year they were telling a court their revenue was like 1/4 of what they had told the public.

No new models. Same janky slop but with a bunch of RL and benchmark cheating. A pretend future model which is just the current model but with a longer COT and gated away.

If you thought your company was going to develop AGI you wouldn’t sell a single share. You’d be a fool. It’s like selling your straight flush.

The AI market might not collapse but the stock market could! Even if the AI companies only need to downgrade their investments and a healthy correction is underway, a fire sale of AI-related stocks will bring the stock market to its knees.

I don't really see this happening in the way that most people are envisioning. It's clear that Anthropic and OpenAI have found product market fit. They've gotten companies hooked and personally I cannot go back to the old way of coding.

However, I do see a bit of reduced demand for hardware and datacenters which could reprice these companies to more sane multiples. There will be winners and losers.

But will you need overpriced Codex and Claude? Most business code is crappy SaaS and glorified CRUD apps & I can build those with Sonnet / DeepSeek just fine …

Have you noticed that some % of devs are totally sold on AI, and others less so? I use it all the time, and I'd say my use is declining now after a fair bit of disillusionment.

It's not hard to imagine a world in which:

* Companies realize they're spending too much on AI, and cut back

* AI companies start raising prices

* Companies cut back on AI usage even more to compensate for the higher prices

* Some individual users use less AI, while others continue to increase their usage

The projected figures rely on EVERYTHING continuing to go up, which it doesn't seem to be.

What are they offering the public (not me and you writing code in our free time)?

They are offering the public an opportunity to become shareholders and they are giving their investors and employees liquidity.

I mean as a long-term product, not as a offer to join a hype cycle.

Automating a large portion of existing white collar work, accelerating scientific discoveries, brain for robotics, etc. These are compelling offers.

Sure, how does that benefit the public?

I don't know. Some will benefit, some will not. The topic here is the IPOs.

What have the Romans ever do for us?!

Their ruins are great tourist attractions.

Short term, nations with a high rate of white collar employment and fewer social services will suffer greatly.

Eventually, and likely in the lifetimes of most people living today, we would have to see something akin to universal basic income (UBI) that covers the necessities in order to stave off massive civil unrest.

If the white collar labor of human beings can’t compete with the output of AI, we either all become blue collar workers or we re-invent the concepts of work and play.

I’m not aware of any existing or proposed economy framework that adequately accounts for the automation that is nearly here at scale. We are not just automating away jobs - we are automating away the value that human beings have within a productive community. Before the mass starvation will come the mass suicide. Our culture teaches us that a feeling of self worth is derived from our perceived productivity. If we cannot feel successful, we may lose our wills to live.

> Before the mass starvation will come the mass suicide

Maybe, but history suggests there will be massive riots instead

where the heck are you seeing OpenAI racing to IPO before anthropic?

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