The Age of the Trillion-Dollar, Zero-Profit Company
6/26/202654 min
For decades, investors valued companies based on a familiar formula: Grow revenue, earn profits, and reward shareholders. But a new era may be beginning - one where trillion-dollar companies can lose billions of dollars a year and still command enormous valuations.
SpaceX recently became one of the world's most valuable public companies despite reporting multibillion-dollar losses. Meanwhile, OpenAI and Anthropic are also racing toward public markets with sky-high valuations and no expectation of near-term profitability. These companies are spending staggering sums on chips, data centers, and AI infrastructure, as they bet that today's losses will create tomorrow's economic winners.
Today, Derek is joined by Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson of Ritholtz Wealth Management and the Animal Spirits podcast to explore the rise of the trillion-dollar, zero-profit company and what it says about the future of technology, investing, and the American economy.
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Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick
Producer: Devon Baroldi
Additional Production Support: Ben Glicksman
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDerek Thompson· Host0:00
[drum music] Today, we're entering a new age for investors, the age of the trillion-dollar company without profits. On June 12th this year, SpaceX went public in the largest IPO in history, pricing initially at roughly $1.8 trillion and quickly trading above $2 trillion. Overnight, it joined the tiny club of companies valued alongside Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon. But those companies have something in common that SpaceX does not, profits. Apple and Microsoft each generate hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue and enormous earnings. SpaceX, on the other hand, reported less than $19 billion in 2025 revenue and a $5 billion net loss. And SpaceX might soon have company. OpenAI and Anthropic are both moving toward public listings, each with valuations approaching $1 trillion. Anthropic is not even trying to produce a sustained profit this year or next, and OpenAI reportedly does not expect to be profitable until the end of the decade. The striking fact is not just that investors are paying up for growth, they've always done that. The striking thing is that public markets are soon being asked to absorb several trillion-dollar companies whose valuations are built less on profits than on the expectation