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| Greetings N2K reader! | This week’s world famous news haiku competition™ is about new limits for a rent algorithm that prosecutors say lets landlords drive up prices. Send me your entry — to our spiffy new email address, haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET today for consideration by your Cheddar peers! And now for something completely different! | —Matt Davis, Need2Know Chedditor | | News You Need2Know | | | What’s the stock market up to, eh? | $SPX ( ▲ 0.3% ) $DJI ( ▲ 0.86% ) $NDX ( ▲ 0.17% ) | | Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter | Anthropic, Open AI, $GOOG ( ▲ 1.46% ) , $LNKD ( 0.0% ) , $AIRBNB ( 0.0% ) , $MRVL ( ▲ 7.87% ) , $M ( ▼ 1.1% ) , $AEO ( ▲ 15.07% ) , $DELL ( ▼ 1.71% ) | | Who will IPO first, Anthropic or OpenAI? | | Anthropic, the AI (which we’re told stands for “artificial intelligence”) firm behind the Claude chatbot, is setting its sights on one of the largest IPOs in tech history in 2026. In preparation, Anthropic has partnered with a law firm renowned for high-profile IPOs like those of Google $GOOG ( ▲ 1.46% ) and LinkedIn $LNKD ( 0.0% ) . The move sets the stage for a fierce public market race with OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. | Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is steering the company through significant growth, with notable milestones already achieved. Recently, Anthropic closed a private funding round valuing it between $300 billion and $350 billion, including a combined $15 billion investment from Microsoft and Nvidia. In the race toward IPO, Anthropic also made strategic hires, such as Krishna Rao, a former Airbnb $AIRBNB ( 0.0% ) executive instrumental in that company’s 2020 IPO. | Speaking to the Financial Times, an Anthropic spokesperson stressed that going public isn’t imminent, noting, “It’s fairly standard practice for companies operating at our scale and revenue level to effectively operate as if they are publicly traded companies." | Although that’s the sort of thing you’d say to the Financial Times even if you were planning a float because you can’t divulge “material nonpublic information” at a time like this. I know, because my hedge fund buddy told me that on a squash court, where I used to get all my totally legal stock tips. | Meanwhile, Anthropic is expanding aggressively, allocating $50 billion to AI infrastructure and ramping up its international workforce. Investors are enthusiastic, with some seeing Anthropic’s potential IPO as an opportunity to “seize the initiative” from OpenAI, although the rival was recently valued at half a trillion dollars, so nobody’s quaking in their boots or anything. | Combined, investors now think Open AI and Anthropic are “worth” more than the entire GDPs of Belgium, Ireland, Argentina, Sweden, Israel, Singapore, the UAE, Austria, Thailand, Norway, the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Denmark, Colombia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Romania, Pakistan, the Czech Republic, and more than 150 other countries. | Neither company has made a profit nor expects to for years. | In a tech environment fraught with obviously unfounded fears of an "AI bubble" (#NotFinancialAdvice), the success of Anthropic's IPO could redefine market appetite for cutting-edge, loss-making AI giants — and dictate the industry's momentum for years to come. Or the whole darn stack of cards could collapse flatter than your mom’s soufflé that time you opened the oven before she whipped it out, pancaked, at her supposedly hifalutin dinner party and you caught hellfire for it despite scrupulous denials she saw right through. #SouffléKiller #WhatBubble? | | | Song of the Day: Ed Sheeran, ‘Skeletons’ |  | Ed Sheeran - Skeletons [Lyric Video] |
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| "Skeletons," from Ed Sheeran's 2025 deluxe album Play, explores relationship conflict through rhythmic, experimental sounds. Highlighted as a standout bonus track, it delves into revisiting past arguments instead of embracing intimacy, showcasing Sheeran's evolving musical style. | “After the afterparty
We took a bottle and a fight back to ours, mm
Six shots don't lead to sorry
We know how it's gonna end, but why'd it start?” |
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| Ed, mate, you should enter our world famous news haiku competition™. You might even make the top five… | | Free yourself from advertising forever! | Now you can sign up for an optional ad-free version of Need2Know! Subscribe for just $5 a month, or $50 a year, and you can continue to enjoy this reasonably high-quality newsletter uninterrupted. Bonus: The immense satisfaction that comes from supporting journalism*! | *This counts as journalism, right? | | | ADVERTISEMENT | Find customers on Roku this holiday season | | Now through the end of the year is prime streaming time on Roku, with viewers spending 3.5 hours each day streaming content and shopping online. Roku Ads Manager simplifies campaign setup, lets you segment audiences, and provides real-time reporting. And, you can test creative variants and run shoppable ads to drive purchases directly on-screen. | Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply. | Use code GET5K now | | |
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| Wall Street drifts near its all-time high even as new jobs numbers worry |  | Who’s excited about the stock market’s all time high? THIS GUY. |
| Wall Street approached its all-time high on Wednesday, fueled by strong profit reports and totally reasonably investor optimism. #NotFinancialAdvice. | Marvell Technology |
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