There’s a particular moment in a race where the person who’s been comfortably in front realises they’re not anymore. They don’t necessarily slow down. Someone else just got faster, and they were looking the wrong way when it happened.

That’s roughly where we are with ChatGPT and Claude.

The numbers doing the rounds this week are genuinely striking. Anthropic’s annualised revenue run rate hit $30 billion in early April, ahead of OpenAI’s $24 to $25 billion at the same point. More U.S. businesses paid for Claude than ChatGPT in April, apparently for the first time ever. Eight of the Fortune 10 are now Claude customers. That last one is the one I keep coming back to.

There’s been quite a bit of chatter online lately about Anthropic’s decision not to renew their partnership with certain government agencies, and honestly, it’s given me a lot to think about during my morning brew this week.

The thing that strikes me most is how quick we are to either completely lionise or utterly condemn companies when they make these kinds of decisions. I’ve been reading through various discussions, and it’s fascinating how polarised people are. Some are celebrating Anthropic as heroes standing up to power, while others are pointing out their existing contracts with companies like Palantir and saying it’s all performative nonsense.