Anthropic’s pitch to investors: We’re losing gobs of money, we might kill everyone, buy our stock anyway. Reuters’ peek at the company’s IPO prospectus includes warnings not far off from Semafor’s imaginary list of risk factors, and it details the company’s plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars more on compute than it expects in revenue. That means public investors will take on the risk so far carried by Anthropic’s venture backers, suppliers, and guarantors.
That’s how it’s supposed to work, and the chance that retail investors end up holding the bag should be weighed against the risk that they miss out on huge gains. (A pickle for progressive politicians.) As for the company’s warning of “existential risks to humanity” — concerns newly elevated by the pope — we’d note that the existence of Anthropic’s 401(k) benefits assumes a world where we’re all still here.