Yes, and his post about the exact same data was noticeably more confusing and less illuminating than theirs because he was primarily concerned to point to whatever the biggest number was and go "Ooh, big number!"

https://www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/

https://www.ft.com/content/e15b0d7e-ff6b-4f16-ba7a-4068feddb... (https://archive.ph/pAIEa)

There was a major material difference between the FT and Ed's post: FT explicitly noted that OpenAI has $billions in cash on hand (which is relevant if you are analyzing data about solvency), while Ed's post obfuscated that data point.

This was mentioned in the article.

> For example, when Timothy B. Lee looked at a spreadsheet that Zitron used to create a projection of Anthropic's revenue, he found, "He doesn't count February 1-10, counts March 1-10 twice, counts August 21-October 21 as one month instead of two, and doesn't count October 21-November 1. [another commenter notes that his spreadsheet also contains February 30] ... Ed claims he tried to compute Anthropic's revenue for 2025 and came up with $3.6 billion, suggesting some funny business [but the numbers work out once you fix the errors]"

As someone with a bit of understanding of accounts and finance I don't think Ed's analysis is very good. He's not someone who would pass a finance exam.

I posted here a while ago when his bubble prediction lapsed and plenty of his fans were here. Telling me how I was wrong and the Q2 reports weren't complete yet because it was still early July and blah blah

Are we living in the same universe? Musk and Altman are glossed over and not criticized?

> while pathological liars like Musk and Altman are glossed over.

You seem to live in a bubble where these people are worshipped ... :-(

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One of the best heuristics I've seen on whether there will be a fruitful outcome in taking someone seriously is how often they invoke labels (name calling, etc).

Hasn't failed - both in real life and online.

Even if Zitron is hopelessly wrong and a complete fool, he's an engaging writer. Like the original article itself states, it's not about the numbers, it's about catharsis. The transparent absence of AI tells in his articles is refreshing, and just rampaging against the AI boosters who lack empathy and self-awareness (which so many of them absolutely do) is cathartic. Even if it's all bunk, fake, and stupid, it's nice to have a way to self-soothe and manifest how much some of us want AI to have a reckoning.

Does that make his readers suckers? Possibly. But personally I also think it's a very human trait to seek comfort.

Right, you're very much his target audience.

If you find derision and extreme cynicism "soothing", the problem may be with you, rather than those who are optimistic about AI.

I'm not financially literate enough to trust my own analysis of the numbers. Ideally I'd like commentary from someone like Bloomberg's Matt Levine, a genuine expert in financial matters who is also extremely good at explaining them in terms non-finance-professionals like me can understand.

No, you can't. The numbers are genuinely confusing, and Zitron actively works to make them more confusing rather than explaining what they mean because he needs them to sound as bad as possible. He also buries the numbers in thousands of words of prose!

The problem is that some numbers genuinely require a critical eye. If a source tells you that the OpenAI CFO told employees July ARR exceeded the Q2 total, there are a number of serious questions to be raised on how these numbers were calculated and what the point of such a confusing comparison is supposed to be. (I think the answer has to be that ChatGPT wrote the CFO’s script, no human financial expert would think to compare an annualized figure to the sum of three specific months.) But it’s hard to analyze the facts appropriately when they’re relayed by a guy who tells you that it’s all a giant scam and infers the worst possible answer to all the questions.

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