How Can Anthropic Lose Money and Still Generate Cash?

Kevin Roose says Anthropic reported an $80.7 billion net loss for the six months ending June 30, and that most of the loss comes from convertible notes. On cash, the business generated about $4 billion of operating cash flow in the first half of the year.

Casey Newton says that cash flow is the reply to people who argue frontier AI labs only burn money and will never make a profit. Before these figures were public, it was easy to assume inference could never be profitable and that open models would pull customers away. The filing shows companies spending heavily with Anthropic, at margins he says are strong enough that some readers will ask why the company is keeping so much of the money.