Etzioni on AI: Is Anthropic worth $2 trillion? Do the napkin math with this handy calculator

Anthropic filed to go public on Monday under the ticker ANT, and you may end up owning the stock soon even if you never buy it directly, because index funds and ETFs will be required to buy it within weeks of its debut.

Anthropic’s bankers are reportedly valuing Anthropic between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. Below is a simple, interactive tool to help you form your own opinion of what’s an appropriate valuation for Anthropic.

Disclaimer: this is highly simplified, and I’m not an investment advisor.

The Anthropic IPO Calculator

The whole IPO debate comes down to two numbers nobody knows: how much revenue Anthropic will have in 2028, and how much of it will be profit. Pick yours.

Revenue in 2028

Anthropic told investors $195 billion. Today it runs at $67 billion a year. Meta’s is $243 billion.

Profit margin

Anthropic’s is 11% now by its own accounting. Amazon 14%, Meta 31%, Netflix 33%, Apple 33%, Alphabet 34%, Nvidia 66%.

Profit multiple

How many dollars the market pays for each dollar of yearly profit. Netflix 17x, Nvidia 22x, Meta 25x, Alphabet 26x, Apple 34x. Fast-growing stocks have traded at 50x and above.

Your number

IPO valuation

$2T

Your number = revenue × margin × profit multiple. The IPO valuation is $2 trillion, the top of the reported range. The arithmetic ignores two things that roughly cancel: a 2028 profit is worth about 17% less today than the same profit earned now, and Anthropic’s $132 billion in cash adds about 7% to any result. Big Tech multiples are market value divided by the latest quarter’s operating profit, annualized; margins are operating margins from the latest quarter. Anthropic’s figures are from its S-1 and the forecast it gave investors. This is arithmetic, not investment advice.