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Altimeter Capital

CNBC Squawk on the Street with Pauline Yang - May 29th, 2026

11m · Transcribed via assemblyai · Watch on YouTube

An 11-minute CNBC Squawk on the Street exclusive with **Pauline Yang, the Altimeter partner who led Anthropic's Series H** — *'now Altimeter's biggest investment to date.'* The headline: the round prices Anthropic at a **$965B post-money valuation** (alongside Dragoneer, Green Oaks and Sequoia), up from **$380B in February** — a sprint to *'almost a trillion'* in roughly four months. Yang's job here is to defuse the bubble read, and her core argument is a multiple, not a vibe: at the **$380B round the company was at ~$9B run-rate revenue; today it announced $47B run-rate**, so *'the revenue multiple for this round is actually cheaper than the last round, sitting around 20x.'* The growth (a **5x in run-rate in the first few months**, explicitly **not** her base case for the rest of the year) is doing the work. On the **IPO**: the *'rumored IPO timeline is October'* and the raise is opportunistic — *'if you can raise, go raise… more cash and a stronger balance sheet never hurts.'* On the **OpenAI rivalry** she refuses to pick a sole winner — the TAM is *'the largest… we've ever seen in multiple generations'* and, like internet/mobile/AI-infra super-cycles that *'each generated a $5 trillion company,'* both can be *'multi-trillion-dollar winners,'* though she concedes Anthropic *'has executed with their product velocity.'* The most load-bearing defensibility claim answers the commoditisation bear directly: models *'can be swapped in or out,'* but **the harness — the product on top, plus integrations (Salesforce, HubSpot) and context — drives stickiness**, backed by a CFO data point of **net retention over 500%**. On margins, she leans on **$47B run-rate against ~3,000 employees** — *'that is just unheard of.'* And she is *'very, very bullish on Nvidia'* (the stock *'up 16% for the year,'* now *'a key partner for Anthropic'*), flagging a persistent compute shortage and an Anthropic–SpaceX deal to lease **Colossus 1 and Colossus** capacity. This is the **bull-side bookend to last week's Brad Gerstner Altimeter hit** (Issue 07) and the same-house counterweight to the cohort's *'100x sales'* IPO anxiety.

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It's a big headline number but I think what's missing is kind of if you look at the revenue growth that has happened from the beginning of the year till today when the $380 billion round happened, which we were also a part of, the company was sitting around 9 billion of run rate revenue. And if you look at the same valuation today at 965, the company announced that they are at 47 billion of run rate revenue. So actually the revenue multiple for this round is actually cheaper than the last round sitting around 20x.

Pauline Yang · 0:40

the rumored IPO timeline is on October, I think certainly investors would, would tell the company that if you can raise, go raise. And while you know the company, I think there's a lot of operating leverage in the company that the company is seeing. Certainly more cash and a stronger balance sheet never hurts.

Pauline Yang · 1:29

First and foremost, we think this is the largest TAM and market that we've ever seen in multiple generations. And so certainly we absolutely believe that there can be multiple win winners. If you look at the super cycles over the last few years, the Internet, the mobile, now air infra, those have each generated a $5 trillion company. So we absolutely believe that both Anthropic and OpenAI can be multi trillion dollar winners over the course of time.

Pauline Yang · 2:16

We strongly believe that we're still in an expansionary period. Anthropic Chief Financial officer provided this data point that the company's net retention rate is over 500%.

Pauline Yang · 3:51

models certainly can be swapped in or out. But I think what we've seen over the last six months is that the harness, right, the product that sits on top of the models drive stickiness. Right. If you think about the workflows that are being automated, the enterprises, if you think about the integrations, right, the integrations with Salesforce or HubSpot or whatever the connectors are and the habit in the context that these models have, I think all of that drives incredible stickiness amongst the enterprise.

Pauline Yang · 5:53

we're very, very bullish on Nvidia. If you think about kind of the, what Anthropic has been really focused on in the last six months, it's getting more compute. Right. Whether that's through Amazon and through Google and Nvidia. Right. Nvidia is now a key partner for Anthropic.

Pauline Yang · 7:42

the first few months the company has 5x in run rate revenue. Certainly we are not projecting that through the rest of the year, but we do think that the company will continue to add incremental ARR every month and continue to grow.

Pauline Yang · 9:26

47 billion run rate with 3,000 employees or so. That is efficiency. That is just unheard of. And so, you know, we think that this company continue to drive very attractive margins, both on the gross margin and the operating margin side.

Pauline Yang · 9:26

you saw that Anthropic did a deal with Space X to lease both Colossus 1 and Colossus to compute. And so I think that's a very strong signal that the company is certainly able to take on more compute and deploy it efficiently to customers.

Pauline Yang · 10:19

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