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- Creators/
- Simon Willison — Creator of Datasette; co-creator of Django/
- Anthropic tells investors quarterly revenue up nearly 50% to $16.8bn ahead of IPO/
Anthropic tells investors quarterly revenue up nearly 50% to $16.8bn ahead of IPO
Blog · Watch/Read · (gathered 2026-10-18)
- Simon Willison summarizes Anthropic’s investor day disclosures, highlighting their rapid revenue growth and operational details as they prepare for an IPO.
- Anthropic reported significant quarterly revenue, reaching $16.8 billion in Q3 (Jul/Aug/Sep), with $1.70 in revenue for every $1 spent on computing power and 11% adjusted operating margins.
- A key insight was the company’s stance on “distillation”—rival AI labs training models on Anthropic’s outputs—which accounted for 5-7% of Q2 revenue (estimated over $500M) before being “materially” cut back in Q3.
- This revenue from “distillation” reveals a substantial, if controversial, revenue stream within the AI ecosystem and Anthropic’s move to curb it signals strategic control over their model usage and intellectual property.