Revenue recognition for private companies generally is less precise than for public companies, which in the US are obligated to report under GAAP, which uses a different indicator than annualised revenue so public companies are comparable.

It makes sense to scrutinise Anthropic’s revenue in the lead up to IPO on those grounds; their AR figure simply isn’t comparable to revenue numbers from other firms.

However it doesn’t make sense to be sensational about this - iirc reporting GAAP revenue is a necessary condition of going public so the chickens will come home to roost one way or another.