TBPN · Oct 15, 2026 · 2h 7m · 116m saved
With Bryan Cantrill, Co-Founder and CTO of Oxide Computer · Reed Albergotti, San Francisco Bureau Chief at Semafor · Daniel Kimminau, Founder of Advanced Spade Company
Photo: Brian Solis, CC BY 2.0 via Wikipedia
Oxide Computer took its first term sheet from Eclipse in 2019 to build its own compute sled, its own switch and its own firmware at the same time.
Bryan Cantrill, co-founder and CTO of Oxide Computer, told TBPN that most founders build toward a sale. He and co-founder Steve Tuck say they are building the company they want to run until they retire.
"We're not looking to flip — we're looking to go build the generational business that Steve and I want to work at for the rest of our careers. I thought that was the point of starting companies, but I guess not. I guess everyone else is geared for an exit." — Bryan Cantrill
Bryan's company sells enterprises the kind of rack-scale machine that, until Oxide, only the hyperscalers had built for their own data centers. The same episode carried Reed Albergotti, Semafor's San Francisco bureau chief, on why bank lending could become the next limit on AI spending, and Daniel Kimminau, founder of Advanced Spade Company, on putting power lines underground. John Coogan and Jordi Hays, TBPN's co-hosts, opened on Anthropic's growth rate and a venture capital fight at Valar Atomics.
The full episode is covered here so you can skip it. 127 minutes of audio, 11 minutes of reading.
Here are the 11 arguments that matter.
Key Takeaways
Anthropic grew 9x last year, not 10x, which John called a real but marginal slowdown
Banks are nearing the limit of what they can lend to AI infrastructure, Reed said
He calls it "a bottleneck economy"
The Valar Atomics fight is not about pro rata, both hosts agreed, but about who Isaiah Taylor wants on his cap table
Oxide sells enterprises the co-designed hardware and software that hyperscalers built only for themselves
Oxide wants no acquirer, and Bryan said so without being asked
Grid investment has tripled in 10 years while reliability got worse, Daniel said, because the lines stay overhead
Advanced Spade grew out of a garage once the LA fires started
1. Anthropic Grew 9x, Not 10x
John Coogan opened on the market's reaction to Anthropic's Investor Day numbers. His case was that the panic overshot. The lab had been growing about 10 times a year, and the latest year came in a little under that.
John Coogan reads Anthropic's latest year as a real slowdown, but a small one
"They went from a little over a hundred million to a billion, which is just under 10x. And then they went from a billion to technically nine billion, which is a nine x, not a ten x." — John Coogan
He admitted the point sounds nitpicky, since 9x is still enormous growth. He also floated a reason Anthropic might accept a rough Investor Day: clearing the air about the slowdown now, ahead of a later IPO, leaves room to show growth picking up again.
