Krishna Rao is the CFO of Anthropic, and this is his first podcast appearance. He joined the company two years ago when run-rate revenue was about $250M. Today it is $30B. He has helped raise ~$75B and is responsible for the procurement and allocation of compute. I feel lucky we get to hear what it is like to sit inside a company this consequential at a moment this pivotal. We discuss: - The cone of uncertainty - How he allocates compute across Trainium, TPUs, and GPUs - What investors misunderstand about model companies - Why the returns to frontier intelligence keep rising - Platform vs application and where Anthropic builds its own products - How Anthropic uses Claude internally I have asked my closing question about the kindest thing more than 500 times. Krishna's answer is one I have never heard before. Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 2:38 The Compute Canvas 6:51 The "Cone of Uncertainty" 11:58 Why the Returns to Frontier Intelligence Are So High 16:45 Recursive Self-Improvement 20:20 Scaling Laws 23:30 Sourcing $100 Billion in Compute 28:05 Platform vs. Application Strategy 32:52 Pricing Dynamics 38:48 How Anthropic’s Finance Team Uses Claude 43:24 Raising Capital & Overcoming Investor Skepticism 52:32 Public Perception, Risks, and Government Regulation 57:25 Mythos Release 1:12:33 What Could Derail the AI Revolution? 1:13:47 Biotech and Healthcare 1:15:31 The Kindest Thing

This is my fifth conversation with @GavinSBaker. Gavin understands semiconductors and AI as well as anyone I know and has a gift for making sense of the industry's complexity and nuance. We discuss: - Nvidia vs Google (GPUs + TPUs) - Scaling laws and reasoning models - The economics of AI compute - Why Blackwell's delay mattered - The bear case on the AI capex buildout - Data centers in space - The mistake SaaS companies are making Few people love investing more than Gavin. His closing answer about why he loves it turned into a full reflection on his investing origin story, which I had never heard before. Enjoy! Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 5:03 The Blackwell Transition 23:15 The Prisoner's Dilemma 27:12 The Bear Case: Edge AI 37:19 Meta, Open Source, and Model Depreciation 43:08 Geopolitics and Rare Earths 50:42 Data Centers in Space 56:06 Power Constraints as a Governor 1:11:31 The SaaS Mistake 1:16:17 Nuclear and Quantum 1:22:25 Gavin’s Investing Origins