Amazon's and Google's Anthropic stakes face their first public price in a $2 trillion IPO

Twelvefold growth to nearly $4.6 billion ^[4] puts Anthropic's 2024 revenue at roughly $380 million ^[1]. The Financial Times reported $11.5 billion of revenue for the second quarter ^[8]. That is two and a half times all of 2025, earned in three months ^[2]. Annualized, that quarter comes to $46 billion ^[3], and $2 trillion is about 43 times that run rate ^[3][4]. On last year's revenue the multiple is about 435 times ^[8].

The prospectus forecasts $518 billion of spending on computing, cloud and related infrastructure in coming years ^[6]. A $100 billion offering, the floor of what The Times reported ^[7], covers about 19 percent of it ^[5]. Last year's operating loss passed $8 billion and the net loss reached $42 billion ^[5], so about $34 billion of the loss sits below the operating line ^[6]. The FT's second-quarter adjusted operating profit ^[8] covers a single quarter, on an adjusted basis. Dario Amodei, the chief executive, called this month for a slowdown of frontier models ^[13], while his company budgets $518 billion of compute ^[6]. Anthropic declined to comment to Reuters ^[14].

DealBook argues the listing is a systemic event. Amazon and Google hold large stakes carried at high valuations ^[10]. "If Anthropic delays its debut or prices at a discount, it sets off a cascading mark-to-market event," the newsletter wrote ^[11]. In DealBook's telling, that markdown would then pull down OpenAI's implied valuation and threaten backers including Nvidia ^[12]. A $100 billion sale at $2 trillion is 5 percent of the company ^[7], so a trade in one share of every twenty would set the reference price for the rest. A discount to $2 trillion becomes a markdown only if the price lands below the value Amazon and Google already carry, and the reports do not give those carrying values.

November can go three ways. Anthropic prices near $2 trillion, and the holders' marks hold or rise. It prices at a discount that still clears the private marks, so the headline says discount while the holders book a gain. Or it pauses, as Oura did when it postponed its own offering over market "uncertainty" ^[1], and there is no new price at all.

In my view the third case carries the exposure, and it runs through funding more than through marks. With no listing, the stakes stay at their last private values. The $518 billion plan then has to be financed without the $100 billion, at a time when rates are expected to climb ^[15]. DealBook's reading is that a delay is itself a mark-to-market trigger ^[11]. Oura's retreat, which the newsletter tied to climbing interest rates ^[2], is evidence for that side. If Anthropic prices below $2 trillion and neither Amazon nor Google books a loss on its stake, the cascade did not start. If either one does, DealBook was right.