“Anthropic will be a $3 trillion company, SpaceX $2 trillion, and OpenAI $1 to $1.5 trillion by Q2 of next year.” — Dave McClure

Yesterday, Keith Teare and I debated the circularity of the AI economy. Today, two of Silicon Valley’s most experienced investors, Dave McClure and Aman Verjee, not only straighten out this supposed “circularity” but also burst the pessimism bubble that envelops so many conversations about AI.

Verjee is not only McClure’s partner at Practical Venture Capital, but also the author of the newly published A Brief History of Financial Bubbles. According to him, today’s AI-stoked economy is not an unusually large bubble. It may not even be a bubble, given that AI revenue — from Anthropic’s $70 billion to OpenAI’s $50 billion — is real. The irrational exuberance lives elsewhere — in companies “draping themselves in AI magic sauce” and in the “SaaSpocalypse” that is decimating software-as-a-service companies.

They are both bullish about our AI future. McClure predicts that by the first half of next year, Anthropic and OpenAI will have joined SpaceX as public companies. Together, these three AI darlings will be worth $7 trillion. That’s seven thousand billion reasons to be optimistic about 2027. Enough to cheer everyone up in our summer of luddite discontent.

Five Takeaways

• Not a Bubble — a Repricing. Anthropic ~$70B, OpenAI $40–50B, SpaceX guiding to $100B: the revenue is real. The froth: AI magic-sauce drapers and the SaaSpocalypse. Burry? “He’s called nine of the last two bubbles.”

• The $2 Trillion Filing. Anthropic files with a very intentional leak; the $190–200B 2028 forecast might be conservative. Google went fourth after Yahoo, Lycos, and Excite — better to do it right than first.

• The Fastest Pivot in Corporate History. SpaceX swallowed xAI, bought Cursor, and rents compute to Anthropic and Google — its valuation now rests on Anthropic’s progress. OpenAI: more board changes than Spinal Tap drummers.

• Circularity as Asset Class. NVIDIA’s $500B backstop is the Corvette financed through GMAC — fine on commercial terms. GPUs are cars, not smartphones. The real worry: the deficit, not the bubble.

• The Luddite Summer Meets the Long Boom. The first revolution whose leaders are the doomers — Dario’s jobs prediction already wrong. History’s good bubbles overbuild and leave the railways behind. Hot take: $3T + $2T + $1.5T by Q2.

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

Buy A Brief History of Financial Bubbles: bigbubbletrouble.com

Chapters:

00:00:31 Introduction: Morgantown vs Atherton
00:02:14 What is a bubble? The symmetric definition
00:03:46 Are we in an AI bubble? Dave’s verdict
00:05:16 Eight months is eight centuries: Dario pulls ahead
00:07:28 The $2 trillion “leak”: Anthropic files to go public
00:08:23 Weeks when decades happen: the coding-agent bet
00:09:52 The SaaSpocalypse
00:11:01 Is SpaceX an AI company? 1,100 mentions in the S-1
00:13:30 Colossus: from two gigawatts to ten
00:14:43 PVC’s SpaceX bet: from skepticism to $2 trillion
00:17:52 The fastest pivot in corporate history
00:18:23 Circular, even incestuous: SpaceX runs on Anthropic
00:18:39 Good Elon, bad Elon: the art and the artist
00:20:10 OpenAI upheaval: more changes than Spinal Tap drummers
00:23:01 Storming, norming — and missing the coding trend
00:23:52 A crowded IPO lineup: let Anthropic go next
00:25:05 Dave’s hot take: $3T + $2T + $1.5T by Q2
00:26:45 Yahoo, Lycos, Excite… Google went fourth
00:27:10 Who’s the Excite of this market?
00:28:57 NVIDIA’s $500 billion backstop: circularity or finance?
00:29:18 Corvettes, GMAC, and why GPUs are cars, not smartphones
00:32:13 The jobless boom: what about Morgantown?
00:34:19 A nation of Luddites: when the leaders are the doomers
00:37:58 Solopreneurs and the four million secretaries
00:39:18 Regulation: three years of change, not thirty
00:40:42 Ten bubbles, two good ones: 1845 and 1999
00:43:37 The ghost of 1873
00:46:04 Michael Burry: nine of the last two bubbles
00:46:22 The Aschenbrenner affair: leverage, not AI
00:47:35 Deficits, not bubbles: Dave’s real worry
00:49:13 Can America and China both win?
00:52:17 The hillbilly American dream: thanks and goodbye