#550. AI Capital Market Frenzy: Anthropic $90B Valuation, SpaceX Super IPO & SaaS Old Kings' Survival Transformation

#550. AI Capital Mania: Anthropic's $90B Valuation, SpaceX's Mega IPO, and the Life-or-Death Transformation of SaaS Veterans

📝 This episode’s podcast summary

This episode clones: the top-tier Silicon Valley venture capital podcast *20VC with Harry Stebbings* **Andrej Karpathy Joins Anthropic | SpaceX Files S1: How Does it Trade | Cerebras Smashes Day 1**

This is a high-density roundtable discussion on AI, SaaS, IPOs, and public market sentiment. Host Harry Stebbings and two regular guests, Rory O'Driscoll and Jason Lemkin, start by discussing Andrej Karpathy joining Anthropic and Anthropic’s $90 billion valuation financing, dissecting why AI model companies are entering a "balance sheet war." They further explore whether Salesforce spending $300 million annually on Anthropic tokens is expensive, how much AI token expenditure will eventually eat into R&D salaries, and whether these figures can support OpenAI and Anthropic’s trillion-dollar revenue expectations.

In the middle of the show, the topic shifts to public market SaaS companies such as Datadog, Figma, Atlassian, Klaviyo, Wix, and Squarespace—whether they still have time to complete their AI transformation. Rory presents a highly impactful judgment: SaaS companies have lost the "future glow" from 2021 and can now only be revalued based on revenue, growth, and cash flow. The second half dives into AI infrastructure and mega IPOs, discussing whether the market is chasing the most exciting companies on Earth. Finally, the three don’t shy away from political risks in the AI industry: the lawsuit between OpenAI and Elon Musk, Sam Altman’s conflict of interest, public backlash against AI, tech layoffs, and possible social backlash.

This is an information-packed, sharp-pointed, fast-paced roundtable on the tech and capital markets. It not only discusses which companies are rising and falling but more importantly, attempts to answer a bigger question: when AI becomes the most exciting narrative in capital markets, who is truly creating value, and who is just being carried up by the bubble?

👨‍⚕️ Guests

Rory O'Driscoll, Partner at Scale Venture Partners, has long focused on cloud software, SaaS, and AI investments. He is known for his deep analysis of public markets, valuation cycles, and enterprise software business models. In this episode, he repeatedly deconstructs the AI capital market from angles like ROI, capital allocation, and historical base rates.

Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr and a SaaS investor and commentator. He has long been active in the enterprise software ecosystem and excels at judging whether SaaS companies can really survive the AI shock from the perspectives of founders, operations, and product execution. His views on Figma, Klaviyo, Wix, SpaceX, and OpenAI in this episode are very direct.

Harry Stebbings, host of *20VC* and founder of the 20VC fund. In this episode, he continuously raises the hottest questions in capital markets, including Anthropic financing, Cerebras IPO, SpaceX S1, YC and OpenAI token deals, and the tech company layoffs trend.

⏱️ Timestamps

00:00 Opening & Podcast Intro

AI Giants' Balance Sheet War

01:35 Anthropic Opening: Karpathy Joining and $90 Billion Valuation Financing

03:10 Why Anthropic Might Be the Best Deal in Private Markets

06:49 Why Dario Is Willing to Raise at What Seems Like a Cheap Price

07:49 The Essence of AI Model Companies: Compute, CapEx, and the Balance Sheet War

08:39 Anthropic vs OpenAI Financing Styles: 70/30 Deals vs Extreme Pricing

10:37 Cash Receipts, Financing Terms, and Differences in OpenAI’s Complex Financing Structure

AI Token Economics

11:45 Is Salesforce Spending $300 Million Annually on Anthropic Tokens Too Expensive?

12:11 Each Engineer Spending $15K–$20K Annually: AI Coding Costs Are Just Entry Fees

12:56 Why Tokens Are Becoming the Largest Single External Vendor Spend for Software Companies

15:21 What It Takes for $1 Trillion in Token Revenue: Eating 20% of R&D Salaries

18:17 Jason’s Bearish Logic: As Models Get More Efficient, Token Costs May Not Be as High as Expected

22:11 When Token Spending Shifts from Noise to Layoff Variable

22:34 Klaviyo’s AI Execution: Every Product-Related Employee Must Submit Code

24:00 Do SaaS Companies Still Have Time? Founder-Led Companies May Still Turn Things Around

SaaS Veterans’ Revaluation

25:59 Datadog, Figma, and SaaS Rebounding from the Bottom

26:20 Rory’s “21 Years Old” Analogy: SaaS Can’t Return to Its 2021 Glow

28:18 Datadog’s $1 Billion Quarterly Revenue: From Exuberant Valuation to Realistic Valuation

29:11 Figma’s Continued Acceleration: Why Jason Admits He Missed Something

29:46 Figma Make Isn’t Good Enough, But Figma Still Benefits from the Software-Building Boom

32:23 Risks of Being Bypassed by Lovable, Replit, and Figma Workflows

33:14 Figma’s Real Missed Opportunity: One-Click Design-to-Production Prototype

Wix, Squarespace, and Website Business Under AI Impact

34:14 Wix Plunges and Base44 Reaches $150M ARR

34:35 Is AI Business Additive or Replacement for Core Business?

35:17 Wix and Squarespace Caught Between Two Fronts: Vibe Coding and Shopify

37:13 E-commerce Growth Eaten by Shopify, Information Display Sites Hit by AI Tools

37:41 Can Base44 Drive Wix’s New Growth?

40:03 Stock Buybacks Controversy: Why “Offsetting Dilution” Isn’t a Good Reason

41:19 Buybacks, Activist Shareholders, and Management’s Defensive Script

43:55 Wix’s 1x Revenue Valuation: Endgame or Rebound Opportunity?

46:43 Which Legacy Software Company Will Become Optimistic Again Thanks to AI?

Compute Infrastructure and CapEx Cycle

48:37 Nebius Growth 684%: Compute Shortage or Bubble Mania?

49:00 CoreWeave, Nebius, and the Risk of Compute Commoditization

50:52 Besides Traditional Software, Almost All Tech Infrastructure Is on Fire

52:41 Nvidia, Power, Network, and the Transmission Chain of AI CapEx

53:58 Why There Are No Signs of Short-Term Collapse Yet

55:40 As a VC, Would You Still Invest in a New CoreWeave at Seed Stage?

57:22 How Investors Give Founders Honest Feedback

59:36 When to Explain Rejection Reasons, and When Not to

IPO Window Reopens?

01:00:25 Cerebras IPO a Huge Success: Biggest US Tech IPO Since Snowflake

01:01:06 “Better Than Figma”: Has the New IPO Standard Been Raised Too High?

01:02:06 Cerebras’ Unique Position: Semiconductors, Inference, and OpenAI Customer Narrative

01:03:44 Can You Still Buy After IPO Day Gains? Rory Reminds Us That Base Rate Matters

SpaceX’s Mega-IPO and the Public Market Casino

01:04:41 SpaceX plans the largest IPO in history: $1.75 trillion valuation, $75 billion financing

01:05:00 The S-1 may not fully reveal the real SpaceX: the company has changed completely after AIization

01:06:20 xAI, Cursor, Anthropic deals may not be fully reflected in the S-1

01:07:30 The market wants excitement, and SpaceX is the most exciting company on Earth

01:08:25 Will retail investors rush into SpaceX like they did with GameStop?

01:10:28 Institutional target prices, float supply, and IPO opening day trading博弈

01:12:31 Jason bets that SpaceX could trade for $500 billion

01:14:26 Rory’s calm reminder: Facebook’s IPO was also universally anticipated

01:15:50 Three-way bet: $3 trillion, $5 trillion, or below $3 trillion?

OpenAI Grants Tokens to YC Companies

01:16:44 Sam Altman gives each YC company $2 million in OpenAI tokens

01:17:13 This is a smart move to win developer minds

01:18:38 Jason believes this will definitely boost YC startup valuations

01:19:58 Token allocation might become a new funding anchor point

01:20:37 Could this make it harder for VCs to get shares in YC companies?

01:21:31 For companies like Replit, Legora, tokens might burn through in a year

01:22:34 Token spending is marketing spending: free credits will change early-stage growth strategies

01:24:01 If OpenAI has idle compute power, this is very smart capital allocation

01:25:30 One inference: OpenAI likely has excess tokens, while Anthropic doesn’t

AI Litigation, Sam Altman, and Political Risk

01:27:10 OpenAI vs. Musk lawsuit outcome: Rory thinks his judgment was basically spot-on

01:28:25 Why the jury quickly dismissed it might be based on legal reasoning rather than emotion

01:31:19 Chain reaction from Elon’s lawsuit: Sam Altman’s financial ties are under more scrutiny

01:31:32 Rory’s complex sympathy for Sam: good intentions backfired on him

01:33:52 Jason counters: Sam hasn’t entirely benefited economically from AI

01:35:03 The cost of complex interest arrangements: when you turn the world’s richest man into an enemy

Public Backlash Against the AI Industry

01:36:37 Why Americans might increasingly dislike AI

01:37:00 Rory’s warning: smart scientists can be politically very naive

01:38:02 Why Jason still supports Team Sam and Team OpenAI

01:39:00 From students clapping for ChatGPT to graduates booing Eric Schmidt at graduation

01:39:48 “Not layoffs, but machine reduction of jobs”: the danger of corporate rhetoric

01:40:27 Cisco, LinkedIn, Meta, Intuit layoffs and political consequences

01:41:00 Jason’s radical suggestion: tech industry needs to rehire aggressively to avoid social unrest

01:41:59 How many jobs has AI actually replaced: 5%, 20%, or exaggerated?

01:43:38 How will laid-off employees view wealth taxes and tech billionaires?

01:44:44 Jason’s judgment: this might be the worst tech layoff wave we’ve seen in our lifetimes

01:45:09 Breaking news: OpenAI may file its IPO documents as early as Friday

01:45:45 If OpenAI starts confidential filing, the last few rounds of funding are about to end

🌟 Highlights

💰 Anthropic Is a Balance Sheet War

Rory believes that Anthropic’s fundraising isn’t about needing money—it’s about reducing risk for future massive compute commitments. Competition among AI model companies is no longer just about model capability; it's about having a strong balance sheet to convince hyperscalers to invest hundreds of billions in infrastructure.

“This is a very big balance sheet war.”

📊 AI token spending could determine whether Anthropic or OpenAI’s valuations succeed

One of the core models discussed is that if OpenAI and Anthropic want to support trillion-dollar token revenues, they must consume a large portion of enterprise R&D salaries. Rory estimates that to meet these revenue forecasts, they might need to take 20% of each engineer’s salary. If actual token spending stays at 1% or 5%, today’s valuations may be overly optimistic.

“You really have to start thinking about what percentage of total engineering payroll in software development markets they’ll take.”

🧊 SaaS Lost Its “Future Glow” from 2021

Rory describes SaaS in 2021 as being “twenty-one years old”: the market was willing to believe you had infinite potential. But once that glow fades, the market returns to pricing based on revenue, growth, and cash flow. Figma, Datadog, Atlassian can still be great companies, but they can’t return to the era of 50x ARR.

“Once you lose that glow, the market will price you for the rest of your life using some combination of revenue, revenue growth, and cash flow.”

🧩 Figma’s Missed Opportunity

Jason admits he underestimated Figma because even if Figma Make wasn’t a good vibe coding product, Figma still stood at the center of the “software building explosion.” But he also sharply points out that Figma missed the ability to instantly push designs into runnable production prototypes—something Replit and Lovable have already made native entry points for.

“Figma is about software building. So all companies truly helping others build software will benefit.”

🔥 SpaceX Is the Excitement the Market Craves Most

Regarding SpaceX’s largest-ever IPO, Rory’s judgment is clear: the S-1 may not fully reflect the post-AI SpaceX, but that won’t necessarily stop the market from embracing it. In today’s public market, what’s wanted isn’t cash flow—it’s excitement. SpaceX happens to be one of the most exciting companies on Earth.

“We’re selling the most exciting company on Earth when the market wants excitement.”

🧨 OpenAI Giving Tokens to YC Startups May Change Early-Stage Funding

Sam Altman giving each YC startup $2 million in OpenAI tokens is viewed by the three guests as a crucial move to win developer minds. Jason believes this will raise YC company valuations because it reduces early-stage risk and allows startups to treat tokens as marketing budgets, enabling more aggressive freemium products.

“Many startups, tokens are marketing.”

⚖️ The AI Industry Is Heading Toward Political Backlash

In the final segment, Rory makes a sharp social judgment: over the past few years, the AI industry has continuously told the public that AI will destroy jobs, increase electricity bills, and change the world—but without offering sufficiently transparent and mature political narratives. Now, as big companies begin laying off, public resentment could quickly turn into political pressure.

“We have some very smart scientists here, but they’re completely clueless politically; those who don’t understand AI but know politics well will eat us alive.”

🏭 Tech Companies Might Have to Rehire

Jason proposes a counterintuitive idea: perhaps the tech industry needs to expand hiring again after AI boosts efficiency, even establishing a new kind of social contract. Otherwise, mass white-collar job losses could trigger strong political backlash, ultimately harming the entire tech industry.

“Tech companies will eventually have to rehire thousands of people to prevent social unrest.”

🌐 Podcast Info Supplement

This podcast uses original voice tones for audio production, so some parts may sound odd.

AI translation is used, so there may be some awkward phrasings;

If you’d like to listen to other foreign-language podcasts in Chinese, feel free to contact WeChat: iEvenight