20VC: Anthropic's $6BN Revenue Month | OpenAI Kills Sora & Hits $100M ARR on Ads | Oura Going Public & Whoop Raises at $10BN | Manus Founders Trapped in China & The Billionaire Tax: Anyone Left in California?

What It Covers

Harry Stebbings, Rory O'Driscoll, and Jason Lemkin analyze five major tech stories: Anthropic's $6B February revenue run-rate and leaked Mythos model, OpenAI killing Sora while launching ads, SoftBank's $40B leveraged OpenAI bet, Oura's IPO plans alongside Whoop's $10B raise, and Manus founders detained in China following Meta acquisition.

Key Questions Answered

• •AI Revenue Accounting: Anthropic and OpenAI calculate ARR by averaging the last four weeks of actual GAAP revenue multiplied by 13 periods, making it real realized revenue rather than committed contracts. However, the same tokens get resold multiple times across the stack — from foundation model to API wrapper to end product — meaning aggregate AI ARR figures across the ecosystem are significantly inflated through double and triple counting.
• •Compute Scarcity Drives Strategy: OpenAI killing Sora reflects a rational resource allocation decision under compute scarcity. Video generation consumes extreme compute while generating minimal revenue, whereas code generation consumes far less compute per dollar earned. Founders building AI products should map their compute intensity against revenue yield — products with high compute cost and low revenue density will be deprioritized or killed as infrastructure constraints tighten across 2025 and 2026.
• •Agentic AI Creates Cybersecurity Tailwinds: The 6-7% selloff in CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, Zscaler, and Okta following Anthropic's Mythos leak was an overreaction. Agentic AI dramatically expands the attack surface — more apps built faster with less code review means more vulnerabilities, not fewer. Security companies should frame agentic AI as a demand accelerant. CISOs are already taking meetings on any credible agentic threat solution, creating acquisition opportunities for incumbents.
• •Tranched Round Valuation Inflation: A common practice involves lead investors entering at a low valuation (e.g., $250M) while follow-on investors enter the same round at a higher headline valuation (e.g., $1B), blending to a true average of roughly $600M. Founders accepting this structure implicitly acknowledge their real valuation is the blended figure, not the headline. The next round must clear the headline number to avoid a down-round optics problem — a trap many founders building toward inflated milestones will face.
• •China Acquisition Risk is Now Unacceptable: The Manus acquisition by Meta demonstrates that China-to-Singapore entity restructuring no longer provides sufficient legal protection for cross-border deals. Chinese authorities detained two Manus founders post-close, preventing them from leaving the country. Any future deal involving Chinese founders or Chinese-origin IP should be evaluated assuming founders may never relocate freely. Benchmark appears to have received proceeds, but the human and operational cost makes this deal structure unrepeatable.
• •California Wealth Tax Produces Negative Revenue: The proposed California billionaire wealth tax and existing 13% capital gains rate are accelerating high-net-worth departures to Nevada (Incline Village), Texas, and Florida. The tax projections assumed revenue from individuals like Larry Ellison who left years ago. The practical outcome is that marginal social services — not teacher or firefighter salaries — face budget cuts when projected tax revenue fails to materialize, making the policy self-defeating on its own stated redistributive goals.