The a16z Show · Monday, August 31, 2026
Both Anthropic and OpenAI are navigating intense market scrutiny, particularly as they head towards potential IPOs. Baker suggests Anthropic may have rebased its financials and is preparing for reacceleration, while anticipating a strategic release of new models following OpenAI's announcements.
“Everybody is shooting at them. And they're in quiet periods, so they can't really shoot back.”
“Anthropic is clearly waiting for OpenAI to release Astra. And then it's like, the next day, here's Fable 5.1.”
“I do think having OpenAI and Anthropic be public companies is going to be helpful for the market.”