orcus108

making AI that runs entirely on your Mac, no cloud, no API bills | building in public | sophomore @IITMadras | views my own (I'm unemployed)

[orcus108 @orcus108]

> undergrad at Harvard
> then went to Yale
> then 3 yrs at Bain
> 4 yrs at Blackstone
> 6 yrs at airbnb
> CFO of cedar
> CFO of fanatics
> CFO of anthropic

insane.

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

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

[orcus108 @orcus108]

most people building on frontier AI have been operating on an assumption that broke last night. access to the most capable models isn't a utility you subscribe to - it's a privilege that can be revoked for hundreds of millions of users, developers, and startups with essentially no process. not just for people outside the US, but for everyone, including American nationals themselves. the scarier part isn't even that it happened. it's that there's no real mechanism preventing it from happening again, to any model, at any time, for any reason that gets dressed up as national security.

the "just switch to open-source Chinese models" response misses something very important. right now, Chinese labs release open weights partly because it's a competitive weapon - it compresses American labs' margins and guarantees China access to capable models regardless of export controls. but that calculus changes the moment China reaches frontier parity. why keep giving away your best models when the US is hoarding its own? the latest big Qwen releases are already closed. the window where open-source AI functions as a global equalizer is closing from both ends at once, and faster than most people think.

if you can't run the software on your own hardware, assume it can be taken away at any moment.

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@joulee Saving this for the future

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@theo it happened so fast

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@digitacy woah! Faster than llama.cpp is great but does it beat the MLX versions?

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@theo wdym? It’s not true??

dang it

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@theo ok but why’s Garry tan on the cover😭

[orcus108 @orcus108]

how to become “cracked” at something

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@itsOmSarraf_ @Ayussheth does bro actually do or just think? (first time im seeing his profile)

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@danshipper id buy this

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@0xParthVora @rahulbhadoriiya insane reach🔥 congrats🫡

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@Harish_521 kokoro is pretty good.
its super small (~82M params) so can run on ur laptop

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@aviralbhat note to self, for the future

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@cneuralnetwork A LEGEND FORGED IN SILVER RESUMES IN RED❤️❤️

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@Kalshi

[orcus108 @orcus108]

A LEGEND FORGED IN SILVER RESUMES IN RED❤️❤️

[Formula 1 @F1]

FIRST WIN IN RED ❤️

#F1 #BarcelonaGP

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@rahamanbinujit Congratss 🫡

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@mynameisyahia @getcontextdev word of mouth >>

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@OjasSharma276 pls call irctc website insane🥹

[orcus108 @orcus108]

absolutely must must read

[Aviral Bhatnagar @aviralbhat]

https://t.co/lye1puttMm

[orcus108 @orcus108]

@aviralbhat might be one of the best articles I’ve read. a very sane and realistic (yet optimistic) take on all this.

i’ve never retweeted posts but this one demands it