The chart captures the defining shift of the AI era. Anthropic reached $1 billion in revenue in just 2 years from inception. Cursor hit the milestone in 3 years—and notably, only 2 years after launching its actual product.
Compare this to the prior generation: Salesforce and Snowflake took 10 years. Twilio and Datadog took 11 years. AI companies are compressing a decade of growth into two to three years.
The time-to-billion-dollar-revenue metric is collapsing for AI-native companies. This explains the valuation multiples that seem absurd by historical standards—investors are pricing in growth rates that previous generations of software could not achieve.
Anthropic’s $300+ billion valuation makes more sense when you realize it’s growing faster than any enterprise company before it. The multiple isn’t irrational; the growth rate is unprecedented.
Why AI Compounds Faster
Several structural factors enable this compression:
Distribution leverage: API-first models enable instant global reach without enterprise sales cycles
Usage-based pricing: Revenue scales with consumption, not contract renegotiation
Platform effects: Each customer’s usage improves the product for all customers
Traditional software valuation frameworks assumed 10-year paths to scale. AI-native companies are invalidating that assumption in real-time. The question isn’t whether current multiples are “too high” by historical standards—it’s whether historical standards apply to business models that compound at 5x the historical rate.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
