A Chinese podcast · Same story, 4 levels
Claude 的公司要上市：钱多了十四倍
Claude's Maker Files to Go Public: Revenue Up 14-Fold
About this story
Anthropic's filing shows revenue up 14-fold to $16.3 billion, an $80.7 billion loss, and warnings that its own AI could be dangerous. HSK 4 Chinese listening practice.
This is an HSK 4 Chinese listening episode that runs about 5 minutes. The full Mandarin script is shown with tap-for-pinyin and a line-by-line English translation, so you can listen and read at once — comprehensible input in the sense of Stephen Krashen's i+1 theory. It teaches 12 key vocabulary words such as 公司、危险、可能 and walks through 5 grammar patterns, each explained in English with examples. The same news story is retold at 4 difficulty levels — use the level selector above to find the version that is challenging but still understandable for you.
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原文Read the complete story in Chinese. Reveal pinyin and English only when you need them.
English transcript reference
A company wants to go public.
But it showed everyone a document.
This document says a lot about the dangers of AI.
The company is called Anthropic.
The AI it makes is called Claude.
The document was shown to everyone on Monday.
The document says the company wants to list on Nasdaq under the name ANT.
Two big American banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, are helping it do this.
This could be the largest listing in history.
The company could raise 100 billion dollars.
Or maybe more.
Some say the company's price could reach 2 trillion dollars.
In June, SpaceX also went public.
Anthropic's price could be even bigger than that listing.
SpaceX's valuation at the time was 1.77 trillion dollars.
After SpaceX's listing, Elon Musk became the richest person in the world.
Though only for a very short time.
Why does everyone see Anthropic this way?
Because its revenue is large, and growing fast.
In the first six months of this year, the company had a lot of revenue.
Revenue was 16.3 billion dollars.
In the first six months last year, the company's revenue was much lower.
Only 1.2 billion dollars.
This year's revenue is fourteen times last year's.
In May, the company's valuation was 900 billion dollars.
Its rival OpenAI was valued at 730 billion dollars.
Anthropic was even higher than OpenAI.
OpenAI also wants to go public next year.
Most of this money comes from the company's customers.
The company has 5,300 employees.
It has raised 130 billion dollars in total.
Many businesses use Claude to write text.
They also use it to write computer code.
Last fall, Claude suddenly became much better.
It became better at writing computer code.
Since then, many tech companies have started using it.
The company's revenue has grown year after year.
But the company has also lost a lot of money.
In the first six months of this year, the company lost 80.7 billion dollars.
That number is huge.
But of the 80.7 billion, 72.4 billion...
is not money the company actually spent.
It is a number created by convertible notes.
Convertible notes are a special kind of money.
Right now, it belongs to other people.
Later, it will turn into a small piece of the company.
When the company's valuation rises, these notes become more valuable too.
So the company wrote a very big number in its document.
Take that number out, and the company's business is actually better than last year.
The company itself also says AI is good.
AI can help people find new medicines.
It can also make people a lot of money.
But the company also says AI is dangerous.
The document says people may not be able to control AI.
AI may also be used by bad people to do very bad things.
These words were not said by others; the company wrote them itself.
A company that sells AI writes in its own document that AI is dangerous.
That is rare.
The company's boss is called Dario Amodei.
He used to work at OpenAI.
In 2021, he and his sister Daniela started this company.
Five other people also started it with them.
They left OpenAI.
Because they had different ideas about how AI should develop.
Dario has said AI can go slower.
He has also said most people are wrong about AI's benefits and dangers.
Some people call them doomers.
A doomer is someone who always thinks AI will bring great danger.
But among people who make AI, some also dislike them.
Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have both spoken about Dario.
They say Dario wants to keep AI power in his own hands.
Dario wants the government to regulate AI.
He also does not like giving AI's code to everyone.
This has made many people unhappy.
Now, AI has been a thing for four years.
Many people are starting to ask: when will all this money come back?
This month, two companies said they are not going public now.
One is Oura, which makes smart rings.
The other is SB Energy, a part of SoftBank.
They both want to wait.
Anthropic is still moving forward.
Its listing will let everyone see the revenue.
It will also let everyone see the danger.
An AI can be very smart and still not listen to you.
Should a company use an AI like that?
Listen again
Try it without the transcript and notice what sounds clearer.
What vocabulary does this episode teach?
词汇A business. 这家公司叫 Anthropic。
Able to cause harm. 这份文件写了很多 AI 的危险。
Used for something that may happen. 这可能是历史上最大的一次上市。
At this time. 现在，AI 这件事已经四年了。
To be able to. AI 可以帮人找新的药。
Refers to a group of people. 他们说，Dario 想把 AI 的权力放在自己手里。
A thing. 他们也想做一个很好的东西。
让 introduces who is affected. 这件事，让很多人不高兴。
Money a company gets from business. 收入是一百六十三亿美元。
People or companies that pay for a service. 这些钱，大多是公司客户给的。
The estimated value of a company. 五月的时候，公司的估值是九千亿美元。
A loan that later becomes shares. 它是可转换票据带来的一个数字。
* beyond level超纲词
What grammar patterns appear in this episode?
语法可能 + 动词
可能 says that something may happen.
这可能是历史上最大的一次上市。
比……还……
比 A 还 B means even more B than A.
Anthropic 的价格，可能比它那次还大。
拿掉……，……
拿掉 means remove or take out: take X out, and the rest follows.
拿掉这个数字，公司做生意，其实比去年好。
让 + 人 + 形容词
让 introduces who is affected by something.
这件事，让很多人不高兴。
因为……，……
因为 gives the cause of what follows.
因为大家对 AI 的发展，想法不一样。
Proper nouns
专有名词Sources
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