Uncovering Anthropic's First CFO: Investors Keen to Pour Money In, He Specialized in Turning Them Down

According to Perception Beating monitoring, Anthropic is preparing for a super financing round with a valuation expected to exceed $900 billion. However, during the frenzy of hot money inflow, The Wall Street Journal revealed the highly unusual trading tactics of newly appointed CFO Krishna Rao: not only did he repeatedly use the excuse of "not yet financed" to discourage investors, but he also deliberately rejected the market's highest valuation, chose to raise less money than expected, and provided conservative revenue forecasts.

CEO Dario Amodei often pens lengthy philosophical essays and publicly bickers with the White House, with Rao being the person who shields him. He joined in May 2024, with his most famous feat prior to that being in 2020 during the pandemic outbreak, when he swiftly negotiated a $1 billion lifesaving fund for Airbnb. While at Blackstone, he used to bluff his way to victory by playing poker in Texas, winning all his boss's chips, earning him the nickname "Chairman Rao" among colleagues. Investors say he always knows when to advance and when to retreat.

Behind the lowered valuation and expectations is the most complex calculation Rao is currently facing. With Claude Code skyrocketing, the company's April revenue run rate has exceeded $300 billion. The huge demand requires him to make an immediate decision: should he lock in several billion dollars of mining power orders for the years 2027 to 2029 in advance? If he doubles down and the future revenue slows down, these hardware assets could become a lethal depreciation burden.

This extreme tug-of-war he experiences every day has completely consumed his life. When he sought advice from his Yale Law School mentor on how to balance work and family, the mentor bluntly advised him to give up: "You cannot find balance. This is a company making history, and you are in the room where history is being made. Ride it out."