Did Anthropic ‘hide’ $108 billion? What its IPO filing actually says

What happened

What happened (fact)

On 26 October (14:00 Paris time), Anthropic filed a Form S-1 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. An S-1 is the document a company must file before an IPO (initial public offering), its first sale of shares to the public. This one is a preliminary prospectus (the document for would-be investors): the price range and share count are blank.

Quarterly revenue rose about 31-fold, from $376 million in Q1 2025 to $11,555 million in Q2 2026 (S-1, p. 158; our arithmetic). Q2 brought the first operating profit in that run: $974 million, about 8% of revenue, after $1.3 billion of pay in shares.

How can a profitable quarter show a $66 billion loss?

What happened (fact)

Operating income is revenue minus running costs. Net loss is the bottom line after everything else.

Anthropic’s Q2 bottom line included two large non-cash items, paper entries with no money going out (S-1, p. 158):

• $59.6 billion from a change in the fair value (today’s estimated market value) of its convertible notes, which rose as Anthropic’s own valuation rose. The line also covers two related contract types, which contributed nothing this year (S-1, pp. 160, F-33).
• $8.4 billion of “other expense”, which the filing says came mainly from valuing, and then revaluing, the assets and liabilities under its note purchase agreements (S-1, p. 161).

Together they total $68.0 billion; offset by the operating profit and $762 million of interest income, that gives the $66.3 billion net loss (our arithmetic).

Why does a rising valuation create a loss? Convertible notes are loans that can turn into shares. As Anthropic became worth more, so did those shares, and accounting records the increase as a loss. A lower IPO price would change the figures.

Cash tells another story: in the six months to June, the net loss was $80.7 billion, but operations brought in $3.9 billion of cash (S-1, p. F-13).

The “$108 billion” claim

What happened (fact)

At 20:38 Paris time on 26 October, the X account @rdd147 claimed Anthropic “hid all their expenses” in $108 billion of convertible notes. It is the earliest such post we found, and it had 954,191 views by 08:27 on 27 October.

The filing contradicts it. The $108.6 billion is the notes’ fair value on the balance sheet (the list of what a company owns and owes) at 30 June 2026. The principal, the face amount Anthropic would owe if the notes were simply repaid, is $6.2 billion, all owed to Amazon. Amazon paid cash for the notes: one batch of $3.4 billion of principal brought in $2.8 billion. Amazon, the only noteholder and a cloud supplier, is an interested party; at the IPO its notes become non-voting shares (S-1, p. 164). Nothing is hidden.

Gromen, founder of the research firm FFTT, quote-posted it twice, at 21:09 and 21:16. About an hour and a half later he replied: “It is not; I was wrong”, and later backed analyst Jack Farley’s point about the $6.2 billion principal. His retraction replies drew about 1,000 views or fewer each.

The jobs worry

What Gromen thinks (his view)

Earlier that evening, Gromen likened China’s entry into the World Trade Organization to an early AI jobs shock, though that shock was about trade, not AI. He argued markets underrate how hard the next wave of AI could hit office jobs: if it is even a fifth as disruptive, almost every market price is wrong. That’s a forecast.

What happened (fact)

His “fell 30%” is close. US manufacturing jobs fell 27.2% from December 2001, the month China joined, to the February 2010 low (BLS; our arithmetic), a span that includes the 2008–09 recession. Research credits China with part: about a quarter for 1990–2007 (Autor, Dorn and Hanson, 2013). Others stress automation, though that method is contested. By September 2026 (preliminary), jobs were 10.6% above that low.

What Calacanis thinks (his view)

On 27 October, All-In podcast co-host Jason Calacanis read Microsoft’s new voluntary buyout offer as proof of how efficient “Super Intelligence” is making organisations, which he calls good. He guesses 6,000 take it and expects revenue per employee to “double from 900k to $2M”.

What happened (fact)

About 60,000 Microsoft employees are eligible, Microsoft confirmed to TechCrunch and GeekWire; its memo gives no number. Eligible isn’t leaving. In fiscal 2026 (the year to June), Microsoft had $331.8 billion of revenue and about 223,000 staff: about $1.49 million per employee (our arithmetic), so his 900k matches fiscal 2022 ($198.3 billion and about 221,000 staff). Microsoft is also a computing supplier: Anthropic has committed to spend at least $44.9 billion with it from November 2026 to May 2033, “regardless of actual usage” (S-1, p. 171).

What to watch next

What happened (scheduled dates)

• The amended S-1the price range, share count and likely Q3 2026 figures.
• Early December 2026Microsoft staff decide; leavers go on 31 December.
• The next two BLS jobs reports will revise September’s manufacturing figure.

Educational only: not financial advice, and not a recommendation to buy, sell or avoid Anthropic shares in its IPO or any other investment. The filing is preliminary, and figures can change.