The SEC's job isn't to adjudicate on whether Anthropic is a good or bad bet for investors. Its job is to ensure that investors have adequate visibility, and then get out of the way.

It would be VERY BAD if we gave politicians arbitrary veto power over who IPOs and who doesn't. The threat of corruption should be obvious.

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maxerickson 3 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

There's middle ground.

Like I would ban controlling share classes. I guess there could be an exception if they had an aggressive conversion provision that turned them into normal shares as the company grew.

You also omit an important constituency in your formulation. Corporations are extended limited liability with the idea that it will benefit the public. The government absolutely should be taking steps to ensure that this is true.

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_heimdall 12 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Informed consent is extremely important. Its also exceedingly rare today, and the pandemic response didn't help.

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gerdesj 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The SEC would beg to differ with your first para. I imagine that "protect" involves "adjudication":

"Founded to help our country respond to the Great Depression, we’re the agency that protects investors from misconduct, promotes fairness & efficiency in the securities markets, and facilitates capital formation for those looking to hire, innovate, and grow."

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kasey_junk 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Note what that explicitly doesn’t say. Any decisions about good or bad investments.

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JacobAsmuth 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Unless you're accusing Anthropic of misconduct in their financial reporting obligations I fail to see the connection.

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eqvinox 8 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I would certainly consider their "non-cancelable spending commitments" misconduct in their financial reporting obligations. The law doesn't seem to be on my side on that though. I don't have enough hubris to claim the law is wrong, but I don't think I'll retract my position either.

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bix6 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

You mean like making up non-standard ARR calculations and not including your Q3 results in your initial S1 draft? Or you know hiding things in footnotes in the S1 so people don’t see the full math on your obligations?

	▲	Manuel_D an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This wasn't hidden in the footnotes of the S1. It was quite clearly explained on page 3, under "Select Defined Terms": https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2130357/000162828026... > “Run-Rate Revenue” is an operating metric that refers to the estimated annualized value of our revenue-generating activity as of a measurement date, calculated as the sum of (i) our consumption-based fees during the trailing 28-day period ended on the measurement date, multiplied by 13, and (ii) our aggregate monthly subscription fees as of the measurement date, multiplied by 12. For purposes of calculating Run-Rate Revenue, consumption-based fees and subscription-based fees are derived from customer usage and active subscriptions.
	▲	jobs_throwaway 18 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		~All companies provide non-GAAP numbers alongside the standard ones, and amended S-1s are also extremely common. Neither of those is remotely indicative of anything nefarious
	▲	losvedir an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		It's totally normal for companies to release their own take on the numbers alongside GAAP ones.
	▲	jeremyjh an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		They report GAAP earnings, and explain why it is not the best method to understand their current performance. Do you think it is more meaningful to investors to use their convertible notes mark-to-market accounting and worry about a loss that represents "paying their investors what their shares are worth"? Adjusted revenue figures are reported all the time for many different reasons, there is absolutely nothing special about this and I've not heard ANY financial analyst explain why GAAP is a better number here. You are salivating over a total nothing-burger. Also, if you didn't hear, their Q3 results were spectacular and were included in an amendment today. I'm not an Anthropic fan-boy and I won't be buying their offering but you've picked just about the two least relevant things in this offering to complain about. The reasons to be skeptical of this offering is what is described in the TFA: Anthropic is committed to spending 900 billion on compute over the next decade and if they can only profitably employ 80% of that it will utterly ruin them. Dario is putting all the chips on number 12. If he is right though - and inference usage explode by 1000x Anthropic has so much scarce compute locked up that they will do very, very well.

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bix6 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The SEC should adjudicate more. The entire SPAC era should never have happened.

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chews an hour ago | parent [-]

Chamath thinks otherwise.

	▲	thevillagechief 28 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I'll admit in an earlier life I got suckered by Chamath's fast-talking, hyper-confident bluster. Dude was just a conman who got lucky. They say it's better to be lucky than smart.

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Waterluvian an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If the government shouldn’t press its thumb on the scale at the start (fair to argue!) then it shouldn’t press its thumb on the scale when they demand a bailout.

	▲	usefulcat 38 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Agreed. However, “the government” is very much not a monolithic entity.
	▲	whimsicalism 40 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Agreed, so also don't bailout.
	▲	shimman 23 minutes ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Why not? The government is allowed to destroy private enterprise as much as the government is allowed to destroy society. Just because you personally disagree with it doesn't mean society doesn't have the right to destroy companies they find to be damaging to society. Destruction isn't the opposite of bail out, it's just destruction. The government is obligated to do what society wants. From this destruction would come creation by freeing up capital to do more productive things than waste money chasing fantasy rather than providing free school lunches or free university instead (you know the actual things that would generate economic value).
	▲	za_creature 31 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		b-but but then... who owns the bag? do you know how expensive private jets are to operate?

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Joel_Mckay an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Agreed, some people like to gamble, and it is not in civilizations long-term interest to preserve the fiscal integrity of the irrational.

People will learn risk-aversion vicariously, or end up living with the consequences of an inflated hubris. =3

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cma an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's mainly the FTC, but I think the SEC does enforce some rules on pyramid schemes etc. even if the operators of them aren't being misleading. Certain business models are ruled out.

Not that I think that applies here, just that they go beyond making sure everything has accurate filing and disclosure etc. and do have some mandate to look into the business models themselves in some cases.

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darig 31 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

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alexashka an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

We should just give the power to people with the most money who pay politicians to give them tax cuts and to not do anything else.

That's VERY GOOD.

Right? Right.

	▲	cornell532 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Nah. What’s good is giving lots of money to the GOVERNMENT who wants to subjugate you. Then they’ll take your money and piss it away because A) it doesn’t belong to bureaucrats; so they’re spendthrift B) bureaucrats are not gonna use what they buy; so it’s shit