logoalt Hacker News

combobyte • yesterday at 6:38 PM • 5 replies • view on HN

Those numbers intentionally exclude the single largest operating expense that Anthropic has: model training. [1]

So yeah, if they stop training models forever, Anthropic will probably start making a profit... until someone else with better models comes along to eat their lunch.

[1] https://www.morningstar.com/news/marketwatch/2026091414/the-...


Replies

ahartmetz • yesterday at 6:59 PM

In the discussion of a similar article, it was called PBBT - profit before bad things.

etempleton • yesterday at 10:41 PM

I am not even sure that is true. We don’t know everything that is included or excluded from their calculation. I suspect there is a lot of funny math going on to get to profitability. Remember there was a lot of similar talks and reports about SpaceX and how profitable they were. The reality was much worse. I just don’t believe it until I see it in the S1. Even then they can hide quite a bit.

boc • yesterday at 7:02 PM

Or if model training is more of a rollercoaster, where spending gets you to the top of the hill where you create a massive internal model which can then build the next version of itself for cheaper and cheaper amounts relative to human R&D costs. If Anthropic is first over that hill, they can race far ahead.

freecodeio • yesterday at 7:42 PM

kind of puts it in 4K the reason behind "we must pace the frontier"

simianwords • yesterday at 7:18 PM

Maybe... just maybe companies find an equilibrium? Maybe companies reinvest in training because there's performance increase?