Altman Responds to Anthropic's Secret IPO Submission
OpenAI founder Sam Altman stated that he has "just heard" that competitor Anthropic has secretly submitted an IPO prospectus to the U.S. SEC.
Altman believes there is no race among AI companies to be the "first publicly listed AI company"; the core competition lies in providing the best technology and building the best business, rather than the timing of going public. He added that OpenAI will pursue an IPO when the time is right.
Market Mechanism: Investors are focused on the listing order of the two giants, with capital rapidly flowing in prediction markets like Polymarket, where the probability of "Anthropic going public first" has risen to 81%. Anthropic benefits from the narrative of being ahead in the IPO process, while OpenAI faces external pressure regarding its IPO timing.
Supplementary Data: Polymarket data shows that the related probability briefly rose to 81%.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Sam Altman has previously stated multiple times that OpenAI does not have a clear timeline for going public. This response continues his consistent strategic focus, having managed external expectations by emphasizing technological leadership rather than capital market timing.
On the capital path, Altman downplays the IPO race signal to stabilize the mindset of internal teams and investors, aiming to avoid being tied to Anthropic's IPO rhythm in valuation narratives, while reserving better IPO windows and negotiation terms for OpenAI, maintaining independence from strategic partners like Microsoft.
Similar to how Google and Meta calmly responded to IPO pressures in their early days, OpenAI is currently in a preparatory phase transitioning from a closed high-valuation entity to a public company, focusing on controlling the pace of technological iteration and commercialization.
Structural Judgment: This essentially involves a transfer of pricing power. By publicly downplaying the competition over IPO timing, Altman shifts the valuation narrative of AI companies from "who goes public first" back to "technological and business strength," achieving a transition from capital market-driven to long-term technology-driven dynamics by minimizing the impact of external events. The mechanism lies in the leader actively defining the competitive dimensions to reduce the narrative advantage of followers.
ABAB News · Cognitive Law
True leaders never participate in races defined by others.
Going public is the result, not the battlefield; technology is the permanent moat.
When competitors accelerate, the strongest response is to proceed at one's own pace.