Simon Willison 解读 FT 报道：Anthropic 向投资者披露季度收入增至 $16.8bn
Anthropic tells investors quarterly revenue up nearly 50% to $16.8bn ahead of IPO
FT 报道称 Anthropic 于周三向投资者披露季度收入环比增长近 50% 至 $16.8bn，正筹备 IPO。作者整理关键数字：Q1 收入约 $4.8bn、Q2 为 $11.5bn、Q3 为 $16.8bn，Q3 每花 $1 算力带来 $1.70 收入，剔除股权激励后调整运营利润率为 11%；蒸馏收入占比 5%-7%，Q3 已被大幅削减，作者推算仅 Q2 其他实验室蒸馏支出就超过五亿美元。
Anthropic tells investors quarterly revenue up nearly 50% to $16.8bn ahead of IPO
The phrase "told investors" appears four times in this FT article, which reports on Anthropic's day of hosting investors on Wednesday. Lots of details in here from "people with knowledge of the matter".
Key things I learned from the article:
- Q1 revenue (Jan/Feb/Mar) was "about $4.8bn"
- Q2 (Apr/May/Jun) was $11.5bn
- Q3 (Jul/Aug/Sep) was $16.8bn
- In Q3: $1.70 in revenue for every $1 spent on "computing power"
- Adjusted operating margins (excluding stock-based compensation) were 11%
This point about distillation is worth quoting in full (highlight mine):
The start-up has also clamped down on “distillation” — a controversial practice whereby rival AI labs train their models on the outputs of more advanced ones.
When rival companies “distil” their models from Anthropic’s models, that involves heavy usage and spending.
Anthropic told investors on Wednesday distillation accounted for 5 per cent to 7 per cent of revenue and that they had cut it back “materially” in the third quarter of the year, said four people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Napkin maths says that if distillation was 5% of their Q2 revenue (before they cut it back in Q3) then unnamed "other labs" spent over half a billion dollars distilling Anthropic's models in that quarter!
Tags: ai, generative-ai, llms, anthropic
来源：Simon Willison 博客 · simonwillison.net