Good morning. Andrew here in D.C. A group of tech executives are headed to lunch at the White House with President Trump today. We’ll bring you a readout tomorrow. Breaking this morning: Oura, the health-tracking ring maker, is postponing its I.P.O., citing market “uncertainty.” It appears to be the latest offering to fall victim to climbing interest rates. But the real question is whether a broader market chill could force Anthropic to pause its listing. Anthropic is the tech economy’s canary in the coal mine. We got a sneak peek at its 2025 financials last night via a prospectus obtained by Reuters. Beyond the top-line numbers, the most important takeaway is Anthropic’s systemic risk. Tech giants like Amazon and Google hold huge stakes in Anthropic, which sit on their balance sheets at high valuations. If Anthropic delays its debut or prices at a discount, it sets off a cascading mark-to-market event. A markdown would invariably drag down the implied valuation of OpenAI, too, which in turn would threaten its megacap backers, including Nvidia. If this I.P.O. window closes, it threatens to expose those “circular financing” fears we’ve been warning about here for months. More below. (Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.)
Big growth, and big lossesWall Street and Silicon Valley are buzzing over the latest disclosure involving an artificial intelligence lab. Reuters just published an exclusive about Anthropic’s I.P.O. prospectus. The big takeaway: The fast-growing A.I. giant is confident that it can pull off a record-shattering $2 trillion listing even as it warns investors that its technology poses “catastrophic or existential risks to humanity,” according to Reuters, which reviewed the prospectus. More numbers to know, according to Reuters:
Reuters said that Anthropic declined to comment. Anthropic is expected to go public in November with an offering that could raise more than $100 billion, The Times reported last month. The listing is seen as a major test of investor appetite for such I.P.O.s., including that of OpenAI. But major questions about safety are now dominating the A.I. discussion. The debate over more government regulation of the sector has grown louder since Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s C.E.O., this month called for a slowdown of frontier models. A chief worry is that models can increasingly better themselves without human intervention, an idea known as “recursive self-improvement.” That poses potential new security risks for A.I. labs and the public at large, and it could expose the companies to significant legal liabilities.
Also worth watching: Anthropic is highly reliant upon a few customers, the prospectus shows. Two of them make up roughly a quarter of its revenues, The Financial Times reports, citing unnamed sources. Investors will have to weigh big risks with potential big returns. The Claude maker booked an adjusted operating profit in the second quarter on $11.5 billion in revenues, the FT reported. But its spending spree is set to go into overdrive just as interest rates are expected to climb, and jitters about the durability of the A.I. trade abound.
Google is fighting an E.U. demand that it open its software. The tech giant appealed a move under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act to open its Android operating system to rival artificial intelligence companies, and to give search data to competitors. (Google argued that doing so would put users’ privacy at risk.) It’s the latest escalation of the legal clashes between Brussels and U.S. tech giants, some of which have drawn the ire of Washington. The Senate passes a bill to remake college sports. The measure, the Protect College Sports Act, lays out new rules, including limiting the movement of college athletes between schools and giving them five years of eligibility. The legislation, which passed 77 to 22, comes amid a series of rulings that have upended the big-money world of college sports. But the bill could face opposition in the House. Goldman Sachs’s board is reportedly weighing a successor for David Solomon. The Wall Street giant would pick John Waldron, the company’s chief operating officer, to run the bank, taking over as soon as next year, according to The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources. Solomon, who has helped Goldman post record profits in recent quarters, is likely to be executive chairman for a year or two after stepping down, The Journal reported. Can Meta sell Muse to businesses?Meta’s artificial intelligence agent Muse has quickly proven to be a consumer juggernaut. Muse, with its smiling mascot, has jumped to the top of the app charts and helped add about $260 billion to Meta’s market value. Now, Mark Zuckerberg’s company is looking to capitalize on that success. Meta yesterday announced that it was starting a business focused on selling its A.I. products to enterprise customers, following a trend of other A.I. companies pivoting to the business market, Sri Muppidi reports. It’s called Meta Enterprise Platform. The company said it planned to sell to businesses its Muse A.I. assistant, a coding tool and access to its models. This builds upon Meta’s other recent B2B efforts, including via the release of open-weight models.
That said, Meta remains an ad business. The company generated about 98 percent of its $60.8 billion in revenue last quarter from advertising. Meta is not alone in making such a pivot. OpenAI generated roughly 60 percent of its revenue from consumer products at the start of this year, with the rest from selling to businesses. That split has since reversed, and the start-up is now bringing in a majority of revenue from its business products, like ChatGPT Work and Codex, a coding agent. Anthropic has long been focused on corporate users. OpenAI’s rival generates a majority of its revenue from enterprise products like Claude Code. More competition is coming. Google is reportedly testing a new agentic A.I. service in Gemini that would have similar abilities to Muse.
S.E.C. sends a ‘critical’ message on private creditThe S.E.C. has taken a staunchly deregulatory approach under the Trump administration. So it stands out when the agency emphasizes the importance of following its rules and regulations, as it did yesterday when it shared a “critical reminder” for private asset managers. The statement urged fund managers, particularly those of private credit funds, to use greater rigor when tracking and sharing the fair value of their holdings with investors. It comes as the S.E.C. is set to discuss expanding retail investors’ access to investment funds, including in private credit, Niko Gallogly reports. Step back: The private credit industry — which provides nonbank loans to companies — has boomed in recent years, growing “nearly 60 percent, from $170 billion in December 2020 to $270 billion in December 2025,” the S.E.C. statement noted. Those loans are not publicly traded, so investors rely on fund managers and auditors to assess the value of the holdings. That opacity can stress the market. When companies that have borrowed from private credit lenders come under pressure, concerns can spread quickly. This year, for example, fears that artificial intelligence would disrupt software companies backed by private credit loans prompted a wave of redemption requests from investors in the funds backed by the lenders. An evolving tone: The S.E.C.’s chair, Paul Atkins, has said that the growing private credit market does not pose a systemic risk. But he’s made note of “emerging pressures” in the industry, as redemption rates and worries about loan defaults have increased. Why issue a reminder now? “This statement reads as an attempt by the S.E.C. to get more clarity to fund managers who are launching more and more private market vehicles to retail investors,” Michael Ewens, a finance professor at Columbia Business School, told DealBook. It could also be a prelude to rules changes. Atkins has championed efforts to loosen restrictions and make it easier for retail investors to participate in private credit. That could provide a major boost to the industry, but it could also introduce risk for regular investors not accustomed to holding less liquid assets.
PICTURE OF THE DAY Elon Musk’s SpaceX company had a mixed day yesterday. Its Starship rocket, the largest ever built, finally circled Earth on its latest test flight. It was a key milestone toward Musk’s push to send people to Mars as well as NASA’s plans to send astronauts back to the moon. But the spacecraft had to return early because of engine problems, and ended its journey in the Pacific Ocean with an explosion. A college-focused program raises a new roundA venture capital fund seeking to find the next big start-up on college campuses is at it again. Called Dorm Room Fund, it was created in 2012 and relies primarily on student investment partners to identify promising start-ups. Now, it’s a thriving incubator that has grown quickly alongside the artificial intelligence boom. The fund just raised $50 million, Erin Griffith reports for The Times: Dorm Room Fund’s alumni have gone on to establish major A.I. companies like the coding start-up Cursor and the defense tech company Shield AI. Others have become investors at top firms including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners. They share deals, advice and industry banter. Dorm Room Fund began as part of the venture capital firm First Round Capital, before being spun out in 2021. It runs an application process and helps train students on scouting potential deals. Its portfolio includes eight $1 billion start-ups. “It is truly the biggest cheat code any college student can have coming out of school if they want to do venture or start-ups,” said Aryan Shah, a participant and investor in the program and a founder of Metis, an A.I. start-up that DoorDash bought in March for more than $100 million. We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.
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