Anthropic appears to be structuring its initial public offering to build a long-term shareholder base rather than to hand early backers an exit at a peak valuation, based on reporting published Tuesday.

The artificial intelligence company has already secured bids totaling $60 billion, matching the reported size of the IPO, though the pricing attached to those commitments was not disclosed. In a standard IPO book-building process, an order book that merely matches the deal size marks the floor of demand, and lead banks typically look for commitments to build well beyond that level before setting a final price. At $60 billion, the offering would also rank as the largest IPO on record by proceeds — Saudi Aramco's 2019 listing raised roughly $29.4 billion, and Alibaba's 2014 debut brought in about $25 billion. Anthropic was founded in 2021 by a group of former OpenAI researchers, including chief executive Dario Amodei. The author suggested bids will likely creep higher as the deal approaches the finish line, and that Anthropic does not appear to be pushing to maximize its valuation at this stage. Talk earlier this year centered on a $2 trillion valuation; the company now looks to be targeting a range of $1.25 trillion to $1.75 trillion.

That distinction carries weight because recent high-profile IPOs have largely served as cash-outs, in the author's view — vehicles for venture capitalists to hype offerings at inflated valuations and use retail investors as exit liquidity. The commentary also faulted CNBC for its wall-to-wall IPO coverage, noting that the offerings it has championed have repeatedly cost retail traders money. By contrast, IPOs intended to cultivate a durable shareholder base are typically priced less aggressively and raise more modest amounts.

Even so, the author argued that the adjustments to the valuation do not suggest a deal to avoid outright, while acknowledging that the figures rest on what were described as heroic assumptions.

The Financial Times reported that Goldman Sachs, the lead bank on the deal, has told investors Anthropic will generate roughly $52 billion in revenue this year, up from $4.6 billion in 2025 — growth of more than tenfold. The projections extend to $136 billion in 2027, $442 billion in 2029, and more than $600 billion in 2030.

For scale, only two companies in the S&P 500 currently post revenue above $600 billion: Amazon and Walmart, each a little over $700 billion. Apple sits at $416 billion. On Goldman's numbers, a company founded less than six years ago would become the third-largest in the United States by sales within four years. Even at the low end of the stated valuation range, Anthropic would rank among the most valuable publicly listed companies in the United States.

Those figures transform the valuation math. At $1.25 trillion to $1.75 trillion, investors would be paying 24 to 34 times this year's projected revenue — what the author called nosebleed territory. Measured against the 2027 forecast, the multiple falls to 9 to 13 times, and on 2030 projections it drops to 2 to 3 times, cheaper than where the S&P 500 trades today. The author expressed deep personal skepticism about the projections, while acknowledging that skepticism has not paid off during the AI boom.

There is also a significant catch. Goldman does not expect Anthropic to turn free cash flow positive until 2030, when it projects $33.6 billion — a margin of under 6% on $600 billion in sales. On that basis, the IPO would be priced at 37 to 52 times free cash flow not expected for another four years. Meanwhile, the company has committed to spending roughly $900 billion on computing capacity, against which the $60 billion raise amounts to a rounding error.

The origin of the forecasts matters too: they come from the bank selling the deal, in conversations with prospective buyers. For the projections to hold, revenue must grow 160% next year and then keep compounding at 80% annually through 2029.

The commentary concluded that while the author has no intention of buying the opening print, early indications suggest the offering will go well for the broader market. The concrete markers from here are procedural rather than predictive: whether the order book builds substantially past the $60 billion target, where within the $1.25 trillion to $1.75 trillion range the deal ultimately prices, and the gap between the final offer price and the opening trade — a spread conventionally read as a measure of how much value was left on the table for investors allocated shares.