“I don’t look to companies to be moral guides. I want them to be good companies. When you invest in the stock market, you want them to be growing fast and making profit. That’s it. There’s nothing more to it.” — Keith Teare

If it’s Saturday, it must be our weekly tech show. Before we went live, That Was the Week publisher Keith Teare told me it wasn’t a big news week. He was wrong, of course (as he often is). The really BIG news this week, which Keith conveniently missed, is that Anthropic overtook OpenAI as the world’s most valuable AI startup. Dario Amodei’s AI startup raised $65 billion this week, putting its valuation at $900 billion, way ahead of OpenAI’s last round at $730 billion. Keith says, without any proof, that they’ve cooked their numbers. Which makes this week’s news even tastier.

The more interesting story, for Keith at least, is Sam Altman’s latest pivot: that humans need stakes in the AI platforms whose wealth they help create. Rather than Patagonia-style moral corporations (which Keith says would make him “throw up”), it should be the responsibility of the state or government to make capitalism more moral.

But even slippery Sam got outpivoted this week by Anthropic, who sent a co-founder to Rome to do a deal with the Pope. Leo XIV’s new encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” is Anthropic’s papal pivot. It’s the smart model for value investing in the AI age.

Five Takeaways

• Anthropic Tops OpenAI — But the Numbers May Be Wrong. $900 billion valuation vs OpenAI’s $730 billion. The VCs have seen the books. Keith’s counter: they’re playing a different game — two to three times their money at IPO. The real test is the S-1. Keith predicts the revenue numbers will look different when audited.

• Dario’s Credibility Problem — But Claude 4.8 Is Fantastic. Keith cites Om Malik and All In on the revenue numbers. But Claude 4.8 rebuilt an entire SignalRank agent valuation workflow in an hour. The product is fantastic. The positioning is not.

• Altman’s Pivot: From UBI to Ownership. Altman has shifted from UBI as the answer to mass AI unemployment to ownership — humans need stakes in the platforms whose wealth they help create. Keith calls it interesting and significant. More so than Amodei’s fearmongering.

• Patagonia Capitalism Would Make Keith Throw Up. Eric Ries’ incorruptible company model: moral purpose, Patagonia-style. Keith’s response: throw up. Companies should make profit. Moral guidance is politics’ job. And politics is massively disappointing.

• Where Does Moral Guidance Come From? The Populists. Not corporations. Not politicians. Not the pope. Keith’s reluctant answer: the populists. Because the people care. Populism is the unintended consequence of political failure. Not a solution. A symptom.

About the Guest

Keith Teare is a British-American entrepreneur, investor, and publisher of the That Was the Week newsletter. He is a co-founder of TechCrunch.

References

That Was the Week by Keith Teare: thatwa.st
Om Malik, “The Copy and the Guru”
Episode 2921: Eric Ries on Incorruptible

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Chapters:

00:00:31 Introduction: ten days since the last TWTW
00:01:01 The big news: Anthropic tops OpenAI at $900 billion
00:01:53 Keith’s reaction: both true and BS
00:02:22 OpenAI further ahead on IPO filing
00:03:15 Om Malik and the revenue numbers
00:04:42 Claude 4.8 is fantastic: the SignalRank story
00:07:00 Altman’s pivot: from UBI to ownership
00:08:00 Keith admits he was wrong about OpenAI’s dominance
00:15:00 Agentic AI in Keith’s newsletter
00:20:00 The pope: Leo XIV and AI
00:33:23 The Eric Ries interview of the week
00:34:12 Corporations should just make profit
00:35:51 Where does moral guidance come from?
00:36:48 Keith’s answer: the populists
00:37:41 Andrew’s new team: replacing Spurs with Anthropic