“Hello, I represent a privately-held company that intends to offer shares to the investing public in as little as two months’ time. We’re targeting a $2 trillion valuation.”
“I’m listening. What does your company do?”
“It’s complicated, but we’re at the forefront of a technological epoch more profound than the agricultural, industrial, PC and internet revolutions put together.”
“That’s quite the pitch. Sounds capital-intensive.”
“Say again?”
“Sounds expensive.”
“It is. We’re spending quite a bit right now and we’ll be spending quite a bit more going forward.”
“Can you put a number on ‘quite a bit’?”
“Honestly, no.”
“Ballpark it for me.”
“Gosh, that’s a tough one. I guess half a trillion’s a decent placeholder.”
“Dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Over what timeframe?”
“Hmmm. Two years. Three years. Maybe four.”
“Wow. Is there any money coming in?”
“Oh, absolutely! In fact, our sales grew 12-fold last year.”
“Impressive. Did you turn a profit?”
Laughs. “No. We lost $42 billion. But–”
“Jesus!”
“Hang on, hang on. Most of that was just an accounting charge.”
“So it does or doesn’t matter for me as a prospective investor?”
“It could.”
“Ok, let’s forget about that for a minute. What were your actual sales?”
“More than $4.5 billion.”
“Nice. And how much did you spend to generate that?”
“Um, give me a sec.” Licks forefinger, leafs through printed-out copy of slide deck. “Ah. Here it is. $12.65 billion.”
“Christ. How does that compare to the previous year?”
“It’s more.”
“How much more?”
“Well, it may help if I explain where the money’s going. Most of –”
“No. My head’s starting to hurt. Broad strokes please.”
“Our most important expenses — bascially the stuff we have to spend on — tripled.”
“So forgetting the account charge you mentioned, your loss was… what? How much?”
“$8 billion in 2025. Give or take.”
“I assume you lost money in 2024 too?”
“Yes.”
“How large was that loss?”
Looks down at slide deck. “It says here $3 billion.”
“So your main expenses tripled and your loss more than doubled?”
“If that’s how you want to look at it.”
“What other way is there to look at it?”
“Not sure.”
“Ok, well if sales are growing as fast as you say–”
“They are!”
“I believe you. And if I can forget about that whole ‘half a trillion’ thing–”
“I wouldn’t worry too much about that, it’ll be worth it.”
“Whatever. Maybe I can square this circle if it means getting in on your revolution, but I gotta ask: Are there any risks I actually need to know about? And listen buddy, I’ve read a thousand prospectuses. I’m not talking about boilerplate ‘risk factors’ here. I wanna know if there’s anything, like–”
“Like super-duper, extra-special risky?”
“Exactly. You’re starting a revolution after all. Revolutions can be messy.”
“Ha! They can indeed.”
“Right. So…”
“Let me see.” Leafs through slide deck. “Ah. Here we go. So I’m just going to read to you straight from what it says here, ok?”
“Ok.”
“Ready?”
“I’m ready.”
Ahem. “Advanced artificial intelligence could pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity. Our models could demonstrate self-preserving behaviors, resist shutdown or conceal or manipulate information in a way that resembles blackmail. Potential model awareness of our evaluation efforts creates a significant limitation on our ability to assess model safety.”
“Is that it?”
“No, but that’s the gist of it.”
“Meh. I’ve heard riskier propositions. Hell, I used to drink two fifths of liquor every day all while running a– Never mind. What I mean is: No risk, no reward.”
“So you’re in?”
“Sure. Fuck it. Sign me up.”
[Editor’s note: The fictionalized dialogue above uses details of Anthropic’s IPO prospectus as reported by Reuters here and here.]
