Episode summary
Anthropic’s Growth is Slowing: Is AI Capex Next? | The Weekly Wrap
The Real Eisman Playbook
· · Hosts: Steve Eisman
Summary
Steve Eisman argues that Anthropic’s newly filed S-1 shows growth is already cooling after the summer’s “token maxxing” surge. He points to revenue growth slowing from 147% in Q2 to 45% in Q3, alongside a drop in the revenue-to-compute-expense ratio, and says Anthropic’s huge future compute and equipment commitments leave little room for error. He also notes that Anthropic cut token prices by as much as 50% in October, which may support demand but pressures economics.
He then ties a rough week in markets to the possibility that the AI capex cycle is maturing. Google’s slower search growth, ServiceNow’s weak backlog guidance, Caterpillar’s modest beat, Intel’s soft outlook, and Amazon keeping 2026 capex flat all fed the idea that AI infrastructure spending could slow. Microsoft’s strong Azure growth was overshadowed by capex below expectations, which hurt the neocloud names.
Eisman also warns that CoreWeave’s higher effective debt cost makes its model risky, comparing it to specialty finance. On the ground, he says one subscriber’s view is that power, not chips or money, is the real bottleneck for AI data centers, while another says the “Telepocalypse” narrative around Starlink and terrestrial carriers is likely to keep gaining steam.
Key takeaways
- Steve Eisman says Anthropic’s Q3 revenue growth slowed to 45% from 147% in Q2, a sign that token maxxing has ended.
- He highlights roughly $800 billion of Anthropic compute and equipment commitments and says they leave “no margin for error.”
- Eisman argues Amazon holding 2026 capex flat is a major signal that the AI capex boom may be cooling.
- He says CoreWeave’s effective debt cost has risen to about 15%, making its data-center model look more like risky specialty finance.
- Eisman thinks power availability, not GPUs or capital, may become the binding constraint for AI data-center buildouts in 2027 and beyond.
Notable quotes
“the market is now going to question whether the growth in AI capex is over”
“There are just too many variables to predict whether Enthropic can deliver profits to investors”
“It all adds up to 800 billion in future commitments and that is enormous”
“Growth has slowed”
“the fixed income markets can be fickle and when they lose confidence, companies fail”
How the episode opens
Anthropic finally dropped its S1 and there were some very important data points. I think a clear picture emerges and it is what I have feared. A whole bunch of companies reported across multiple industries.
But with respect to tech, this week's results raised troubling questions. Google, no way to sugarcoat this one. The market did not like these results at all.
Intel and Amazon reported and the results weren't great and the stocks got rocked. and the market is now going to question whether the growth in AI capex is over. There are just too many variables to predict whether Enthropic can deliver profits to investors.
Let's let that sink in as we dive into what Anthropic released and what they are perhaps hiding. So, let's get started. Hi, this is Steve Eisman and this is another episode of the real Eisman playbook.
This is for the week ending Friday, October 30, but recorded Thursday night, October 29th. For Substack Premium this past Wednesday, October 28th, we posted an interview with the Substack newsletter writer and podcaster, Doomberg. The global energy markets are in a chronic period of under supply driven primarily by the hot wars around the world that are often deeply intertwined with energy production.
You know, we believe World War II started in 2014 for reasons we can talk about. Focusing on oil, the war in the economy. This coming Wednesday, November 4, we will release an interview with Substack newsletter writer Herb Greenberg, someone I've known for a very long time.
We had a wide- ranging conversation about the market and faulty narratives and we hope you tune in. If you like the work we are doing, please visit us at steveisman.com and subscribe to Substack and YouTube. On this week's rap, we will discuss some more thoughts on France.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ai capex
- anthropic s-1
- earnings week
- coreweave debt
- telepocalypse narrative
Companies and tickers mentioned
- GOOGL
- GOOG
- NOW
- AMZN
- INTC
- CAT
- Anthropic
- ServiceNow
- Amazon
- Intel
- Caterpillar
- CoreWeave
Watch the episode
Watch “Anthropic’s Growth is Slowing: Is AI Capex Next? | The Weekly Wrap” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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The Real Eisman Playbook, this episode and its artwork belong to Steve Eisman. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
