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Comment by fpoling | Hacker News Reader

The article suggests exactly that requiring to delay IPO until 2 consequent quarters of detailed financial audits will be available from Anthropic. Without that there is simply not enough information for an investor to make a rational choice.

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It's a highly speculative investment in a company that, based on current trends, relies heavily on technology which doesn't exist yet and experts in the field aren't sure what it will be used for. It lost 42 billion dollars last year.

I'm not even going to say it is a bad investment, it might be a once in a lifetime opportunity. But if the current public information isn't enough to dissuade a buyer then that investor is sophisticated enough that they can wait 2 more quarters after the IPO before buying.

It kills me that I know their whole business is built on a false premise, but those who have never maintained software can't see it.

All that's really happening is that they're borrowing from a source of debt that's completely off the books: software quality debt.

That is the steel wall they are set up slam into at 100mph. Just because tech debt isn't on the books doesn't mean it isn't a force that can halt growth.

It'd be like if we passed 1 million new laws to regulate commerce. That's good for business right? The only thing better would be ten million new regulations

>All that's really happening is that they're borrowing from a source of debt that's completely off the books: software quality debt.

Can you be more specific? Are we talking about technical debt that Anthropic itself took on, or that its customers took on?

customers I think

By all accounts, Anthropic has taken on an enormous amount of technical debt in Claude Code (and presumably its other software). What isn’t clear is whether this is actually a problem.

At normal startups, tech debt slams the brakes on product growth, but it takes a lot of years for it to happen. At Anthropic, they’re speed running tech debt, but they also have AI to help them navigate it. Will it be a problem? Don’t know, looking forward to finding out.

Both. They do it themselves to demonstrate to their customers what a good idea it is.

IPO is a lifetime opportunity to get enormous returns for early investors.

For sure it's not a lifetime opportunity for a regular guy. I expect it to have a similar dynamics as Uber after IPO.

> The article suggests exactly that requiring to delay IPO until 2 consequent quarters of detailed financial audits will be available from Anthropic. Without that there is simply not enough information for an investor to make a rational choice.

I plan to invest a (relatively small) amount of money in Anthropic's IPO. The amount of money I plan to invest is so small (around 1–2% of my total portfolio), the downside is minimal – if it crashes to zero, I've lost 1–2%. I don't see how this is "irrational" for me to do–if I want to do it, the risk is something I'm aware of and can handle. I don't think two quarters of financial results is going to change anything, because I'm doing it based on vibes, not based on stock fundamental analysis.

> I don't see how this is "irrational" for me to do

And..

> because I'm doing it based on vibes, not based on stock fundamental analysis.

So it seems that you do agree that you're not acting rationally, but you're okay with that as its contained.

The thing is: if enough people do what you're planning to do, the market is basically broken. Early investors will be getting back healthy returns, based on making ludicrous investments in a very risky business that still hasn't been validated at all. Basically a Ponzi scheme.

With more data, analysts might be able to raise more severe warning flags, that might deter people like you from investing.

Or Anthropic might actually take over the entire economy, and holding its stock might be the only worthwhile economic activity left for us, mere humans. :-)

> if enough people do what you're planning to do, the market is basically broken

First time?

> So it seems that you do agree that you're not acting rationally, but you're okay with that as its contained.

No, I don’t agree I’m “not acting rationally”. How do you define “rationality”?

1. based on or in accordance with reason or logic

And rationality is defined as the opposite of whatever is doing things "on vibes" is. You said it yourself, you are going with the vibes on your investment instead of reasoning and logic. And with so little information as there is about Anthropic's IPO reasoning and logic to invest are hard to come by.

There's a distinction between theoretical reason–what it is rational to believe, what arguments one rationally ought to accept or reject; and practical reason–what it is rational to do. Logic is primarily about the former; choosing whether to invest in an IPO is primarily about the later. An action can be theoretically irrational if it is motivated by or involves the acceptance or promotion of irrational beliefs; but making a decision based on "vibes" isn't such a thing.

Have you ever heard the story of Buridan's ass? A perfectly rational donkey placed precisely midway between two bales of hay; it has no logical reason to prefer one to the other, so instead of picking one, it starves to death. That donkey was irrational, not through lack of logic, but through having too much of it. The donkey who picks which bale of hay to eat first based on vibes is more rational than the donkey which completely rejects vibe-based decision making.

I see where you are going. And I agree with the principle. I do not agree that it applies to invest in that IPO, thou. I do not see that investment as equidistant to all other options.

Consider this investment strategy: put most of your money in passive index fund ETFs (e.g. VOO), put a minority in a random selection of other things based on “vibes” - is that actually an “irrational” strategy?

I bought US$350 of stock in some random Australian microcap because my dad worked there in the 1980s. Worst case scenario I lose US$350. And I get to have some fun conversations with my dad. What’s irrational about that?

It's wild to me how quickly the term Ponzi scheme has devolved from its original meaning. I'm guessing it started happening around the time the stuff with Madoff came to light. People use the term basically as an insult now, trying to convey that the investment they're talking about is stupid, irrational, immoral, or some other negative value judgment. It should be obvious to people familiar with the term than an investment into Anthropic isn't a Ponzi scheme. So characterizing it as such leads to confusion among people who might not be that familiar with the term.

Ponzi scheme is a type of fraud in which the fraudster misrepresents whats happening with your money. Investments in stock market or crypto happen with knowledge of the risks and people buy and sell them freely. Maybe they feel similar to you because a Ponzi scheme is pretending to be an investment, which is the fraud part.

You aren't the target for arguing the SEC should delay the IPO, it's for investment vehicles like pension funds that take down the whole economy if they crash.

Then they shouldn't invest, no? That is the rational choice for them. When you are not sure and do not have an appetite for gambling, you move on.

Pension funds don’t even need to wait for IPOs to invest in companies, and they have actual investment experts on staff, so I don’t really think that’s a major worry.

It is irrational if a crash will be correlated with other stocks. It is much better to invest 1-2% of funds into portfolio insurance than into Anthropic.

Investing on IPOs is almost always a bad idea. They are timed for the most expensive moment, and when earnings appear highest.

> Without that there is simply not enough information for an investor to make a rational choice.

Then the investor can invest in something else if it doesn't have enough information about Anthropic to invest in it.

Then they can stay out of the IPO.

They cant as easily if it becomes part of index funds and such. Given high valuation, it can end up essentially mandatory part of those.

And if bubble pops only after, we get exactly situation VC want - they get reward while everyone else eats the losses they caused.

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