The Wall Street Skinny

Anthropic’s S-1 is finally public, giving investors their first real look under the hood of one of the most anticipated IPOs in years. We dig into the numbers behind the rumored $2 trillion valuation, Anthropic’s growth and profitability story, its massive AI compute commitments, and what the filing actually tells us about the economics of the business.

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Nathan Fielder’s You Can See Everything is the most talked-about documentary of the year, and after sitting through all three hours of it (there is exactly one acceptable bathroom break, and we tell you when), we came out more divided than when we went in. The film asks us to decide who Elizabeth Holmes actually is: a liar who knew the truth and deceived people anyway, a woman who lied to herself so thoroughly she no longer knows the difference, or a useful idiot who has been handed from one controlling man to the next. One of us walked in firmly in the second camp. The other changed her mind three times before breakfast. So we start by asking whether those are even the right three options.

To get there, we recap what Theranos actually was: the Enron connection, the Stanford dean who never bought it, Rupert Murdoch’s $125 million, the Pfizer logos pasted onto “independent” reports, and the diluted blood samples telling Walgreens customers they’d had miscarriages they hadn’t had. Then we walk through what Fielder does with it, and why the second half of the movie turns into something closer to a heist. Why does Amanda Seyfried go from hired reenactor to wanting to break up a relationship? What does Billy Evans have power of attorney over, and why does he carry a gun? Did Elizabeth know her boyfriend had negotiated a cut of the documentary when she looked into the camera and said she had no economic upside? And when two people watch the same scene of Nathan Fielder asking a convicted fraudster about the word “can,” how do they come away with opposite conclusions about whether she’s being literal or being clever?

That last question is where the two of us really split. One of us has known the other since age seven and has some things to say about how literal minds actually work, including a detour through medevac helicopters, SEC testimony, and whether a woman who quotes Yoda in her interviews gets to claim she doesn’t understand figurative language. The other wants to know why Adam Neumann, Elon Musk, and half of Silicon Valley never saw the inside of a courtroom for the same fake-it-till-you-make-it playbook. Is Elizabeth Holmes a mastermind, a product of the zero-rate era, or just the one who got caught? And after three hours of getting closer to her than anyone ever has, do we know more about her than we did before, or less?

Timestamps

0:00 We’re in costume
2:00 The three ways to judge Elizabeth Holmes
2:50 Where we each land going in
5:30 Theranos recap: the Enron dad, Stanford, the pivot
9:00 Murdoch, the Waltons, and the $9 billion valuation
11:00 The voice, the turtleneck, and fundraising as a woman
14:40 No diligence: fake Pfizer reports, diluted blood, Walgreens
16:50 The whistleblowers and what she was actually convicted of
20:20 The documentary, part one: the month before prison and Billy Evans
24:30 The economic upside question: did she know?
27:00 Amanda Seyfried joins and wants to break them up
29:30 Confronting Billy: power of attorney, the X account, the rage
30:30 The kids, and whether we’re being manipulated
31:50 Dead man switches and a gun
33:30 From The Rehearsal to the reenactment
35:20 The prison visit: two questions
37:00 Did Nathan fall for her?
39:20 Three things at the end: the contract, the swim, the New York Times quote
42:00 Why Billy? Rich versus wealthy
45:40 Does she believe her own lies? Who’s on first
50:30 Figurative language and the medevac helicopter testimony
56:30 Why Nathan Fielder? The “you picked me because I’m incompetent” confession
59:30 Will the public give her a second chance?
1:02:30 Is she any different from the rest of Silicon Valley?
1:04:50 Where we actually agree
1:06:40 ZIRP, AI promises, and what everybody does
1:08:00 Do we know less than when we started?

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0:00 Why Enron matters for the AI conversation right now

Go to groundnews.com/skinny for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe through our link for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage.

Go to groundnews.com/skinny for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe through our link for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage.

Go to groundnews.com/skinny for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe through our link for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage.

Go to www.groundnews.com/skinny for a better way to stay informed. Subscribe through our link for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage.

Everyone in the financial media is telling you the same story: Scott Bessent's surprise Treasury buyback announcement is a thumb on the scale of the bond market, and it's making Kevin Warsh's job at the Fed harder. But what if the headlines have it exactly backwards? What if the Treasury Secretary is actually running interference for the one thing the Fed Chair can't do himself? Fresh off asking Bessent this question face-to-face at the Charlotte Economic Club, Jen breaks down why she thinks there's a stealth rate hike hiding inside what looks like yield suppression, and why the best way to understand it is a three-act magic trick straight out of The Prestige.

To get there, we have to answer the questions most coverage skips entirely. What actually happens at a quarterly refunding, and why does the Treasury auction schedule matter more than almost anyone realizes? What's the difference between an on-the-run and off-the-run bond, and why are aged long bonds from the COVID era trading below 50 cents on the dollar? When the Treasury buys back 30-year paper and funds it with T-bills and short-dated notes, is that QE, or is it something closer to the opposite? And why would Bessent make this move right before the AI hyperscalers flood the corporate bond market in September?

Then things get weirder. Why did the US just participate in the biggest coordinated yen intervention in decades, and what does it have to do with Japan's Treasury holdings? How do stablecoins, a resurgent crypto market, and a shaky dollar all fit into the same trade? And what do Bessent and Warsh, supposedly at war, have in common through their shared mentor Stan Druckenmiller, whose AI-generated op-ed became its own scandal?

The LA Lakers --- a prestigious basketball franchise that didn't change hands for 46 years --- just sold twice in ten months, the second time for $2.5 billion more than the first. The seller is Mark Walter, CEO of Guggenheim, owner of the Dodgers and part of Chelsea FC, and the man whose laptop and phone the FBI seized off his private jet just as the Lakers deal was coming together. Since then, one of the insurance companies in his orbit has revised its reported related-party investments from $1.4 billion to $17 billion. Quite the rounding error.

We got to sit down with John Quinn — the "Quinn" of Quinn Emanuel — one of the most powerful litigators in the world, and the man whose firm is defending OpenAI right now. What does someone at the very top of the legal food chain see coming that the rest of us don't? And why does he think one of the oldest concepts in law is about to become the most valuable weapon in tech?