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AK Alex Kantrowitz Alex Kantrowitz Independent journalist covering the technology industry and its effect on society, with a focus on large tech companies and artificial intelligence.

“I have a conspiracy theory on that. They had the longest risk factor section I've ever seen in my whole life. … I think what they did was they wanted to bury the existential risk factor in the most boilerplate stuff imaginable, so you would miss that and just be like, oh, well, they had all these other capital risks.”

Big Technology · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · October 2026

“I have a conspiracy theory on that. They had the longest risk factor section I've ever seen in my whole life. … I think what they did was they wanted to bury the existential risk factor in the most boilerplate stuff imaginable, so you would miss that and just be like, oh, well, they had all these other capital risks.” — Alex Kantrowitz, Big Technology

Context

His co-host had said the existential-risk language in Anthropic's S-1 felt like the company was messing with readers. Kantrowitz, who had tweeted dozens of the risk factors, offers his own theory for why the section was so long.

Transcript

Big Technology Around 45:17 into the episode
Alex Kantrowitz

…you that it might kill you and like they're going to protect you. And it's like, really? Well, you're saying it's going to potentially wipe us all out and you have to develop it because you can develop it safely. But then you're also walking away with some of like the richest people in history.

Ranjan Roy

…risks to humanity, I also have to admit, I actually wasn't that interested in the whole risk factor side of it. I know I saw you tweeting them out and you were discussing them with Dan, but like, to me, they were, I don't know, I, they almost just feel like they're like just fucking with us. Dude,

Alex Kantrowitz

I have a conspiracy theory on that. They had like the longest risk factor section I've ever seen in my whole life. Like I tweeted 80 of them and then I was like, I tweeted one post with 80 of them. And the funny thing is, I stopped at 80. I don't even remember how many there were because there were so many. And I think what they did was they wanted to bury the. Existential risk risk factor in like the most boilerplate shit imaginable. So you would miss that and just be like, oh, well, they had all these other capital risks. But

Ranjan Roy

we know the existential risk and everyone covered the existential risk. Like, I guess to me, that was like normally S1 risk factors. The whole point is to like recognize risks that exist that especially likely disclose things that investors don't already understand. And like legally, also that you…

Alex Kantrowitz

it was so long that they were just like, all right, you'll get exhausted and no one will pay it. Well, anyway, I think you're right that they have, it's been talked to death. All right. Here's a risk factor for us to talk about before we leave today, which is the price. You know, we talked about a…

Ranjan Roy

I mean, that's the other part again, like the moment we're in in the next few months. We're already seeing the actual like cost. I mean, we were, we talked about the cost and compute. We've talked about the actual ability of them to charge, but also, I guess, if the aggregate demand increases and…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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