当贵公司正为股市历史上最热门的IPO之一做准备时，你最好相信，投资者和外部专家都会像用细齿梳一样仔细审视你的财务状况。
When your company is gearing up for one of the hottest IPOs in stock market history, you’d better believe investors and outside experts alike will be poring over your finances with a fine-toothed comb.
AI实验室Anthropic正处于这种情况之中，其广受期待的公开发行正在筹备中。本周早些时候，《华尔街日报》报道称，Anthropic曾向私募投资者透露，其收入增长了45%，达到近170亿美元。这一消息出现在AI公司曾向投资者吹嘘其盈利能力的近一个月后 — — 虽然只有在使用一种特殊的会计方法、剔除其大部分费用的情况下才成立。
This is the situation AI lab Anthropic finds itself in during the run-up to its widely anticipated public offering. Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Anthropic had told private investors its revenue had grown 45 percent to nearly $17 billion. That news came nearly a month after news broke that the AI company was bragging to investors that it was profitable — although only if you used a special accounting method that stripped out most of its expenses.
然而，正如投资者立即注意到的那样，这一170亿美元的收入数字，相比于支撑该公司预期2万亿美元估值所需的增长规模，简直是沧海一粒。正如《商业内幕》所指出的，Anthropic第三季度的收入在纸面上可能看起来令人惊叹，但它远远不足以支撑其13位数目标所需的增长水平。
Yet as investors immediately noticed, that $17 billion revenue figure is a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of growth needed to sustain the firm’s anticipated $2 trillion valuation. As Business Insider notes, Anthropic’s third quarter income might look incredible on paper, but it falls far short of the growth needed to justify its 13-figure target.
“远远不够好，”市场研究博客Geiger Capital所属的社交媒体账号在一篇帖子中评论道。“它已经结束了。”“有人记得这个吗？”AI研究员兼批评者Gary Marcus在一条帖子中写道，并附上了一张截图，截图中的标题表明Anthropic需要在2028年实现约1900亿至2000亿美元的收入，才能证明其估值的合理性。“他们根本不可能达到。”在收入公告发布后，路透社报道称，一些投资者立即开始权衡一个更低的估值 — — 约1.5万亿美元，这在Anthropic的叙事中制造了5000亿美元的差距。
“Not good enough,” a social media account belonging to market research blog Geiger Capital commented in a post. “It’s over.”“Anyone remember this?” posted AI researcher and critic Gary Marcus, alongside a screenshot of a headline stating that Anthropic would need revenue of about $190-200 billion by 2028 to justify its valuation. “They ain’t gonna come close.”After the revenue announcement, Reuters reported that some investors immediately began weighing a lower valuation of about $1.5 trillion, representing a $500 billion gap in Anthropic’s narrative.
他们此时的担忧是可以理解的，因为人工智能建设的极高成本正变得越来越难以证明其合理性。Anthropic 的收入增长趋势是否向上 — — 并且足够陡峭 — — 这是整个科技行业的一个关键问题：九月下旬，一份泄露的 IPO 申请文件显示，该公司在 2025 年实现了 46 亿美元的收入，但亏损了 420 亿美元。
Their concerns are understandable at this stage in the game, as the extremely high cost of the AI buildout is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. Whether Anthropic’s revenue growth trends upward — and steeply enough — is a crucial issue for the broader tech sector: in late September, a leaked IPO filing revealed that the company brought in $4.6 billion in revenue across 2025, but lost $42 billion.
鉴于该人工智能实验室已承诺在未来十年投入约 5180 亿美元用于人工智能基础设施建设，Anthropic 把握爆发式收入增长的时机显然已经过去。
Given that the AI lab has committed to spending some $518 billion on AI infrastructure over the next decade, though, the time for Anthropic to tap into explosive revenue growth was clearly yesterday.