# Anthropic surpassed Google's revenue-growth record

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/anthropic-surpassed-googles-revenue-growth-record/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

- Speaker: [Eric Schmidt](https://realalpha.app/people/eric-schmidt/) · Eric Schmidt is a former CEO of Google and technology executive. · Scaled Google as CEO through 2011, now runs rocket maker Relativity Space and co-founded Schmidt Sciences.
- Host: [Nicolai Tangen](https://realalpha.app/people/nicolai-tangen/) · CEO, Norges Bank Investment Management
- Show: In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen
- Episode: [Eric Schmidt: Are We Ready for Superintelligence? | Podcast | In Good Company](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/), Oct 21, 2026
- Moment: 3:23 to 5:30 of the episode (2 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/anthropic-surpassed-googles-revenue-growth-record/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=203

## Quote

> “they smashed it **more than twice the speed** as we did right”
> — [Eric Schmidt](https://realalpha.app/people/eric-schmidt/) at [3:51](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=231) · In Good Company with Nicolai Tangen

## Takeaways

1. Schmidt cites revenue growth as evidence of real demand.
2. He says models take months to build and can age quickly.
3. Competition between leading labs moves on a months-long cycle.

## About this segment

Eric Schmidt says Anthropic's revenue grew at more than twice the pace of Google's record when he was CEO. He also describes model cycles that can expire faster than they take to build.

From “Eric Schmidt: Are We Ready for Superintelligence? | Podcast | In Good Company”, Oct 21, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/)

## Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

[3:25](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=205) this was off the chart bigger than everything else you've seen? I'm always not first. I wait to see where the slope is. And we get all sorts of data in the things that I do to see that this is not a bubble. Everyone says, oh, it's a bubble. They're wasting their money. If you look at Anthropics revenue growth, when I was CEO at Google, we set the revenue growth record they smashed it more than twice the speed as we did right that's growth. It's not fake. It's real money with real customers who are paying for something useful in their eyes. One way to understand tech is that time compresses every cycle. 30 years ago, I had lots and lots of time to build products, to think about it, to give talks, to make mistakes, and so forth. Now there's no time. The models, for example, take roughly six months to build,

[4:28](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=268) two months or so to actually test, and they're released and they're antiquated within five months. The models themselves cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make. Some estimates are much higher. I'm using conservative numbers. Can you imagine being in a business where you get six months to build something and then it expires in less time than you built it because the next thing is coming along and if you look today the the hyper competition is at the moment and this moves around between anthropic and open ai because of deep reasoning um i was with my friends at google and they said just wait when gemini 4 comes out it's gonna beat them all right and i bet you that if we go to meta they'll say just wait till the next one and the timing is measured in months not years i don't know i mean the next the next cycle will drive people insane because it'll be days

[5:24](https://realalpha.app/v/U5YtR3OG5Uo/?t=324) it's fun to be alive it's a great can i just say one thing yeah for your audience