Jean-Michel Basquiat never painted quite like anyone else. He left fragments of his inner turmoil on canvas: distorted faces, exposed skulls, crossed-out words and small crowns perched above strange, unsettling figures. His paintings seemed to have emerged from the streets of New York after a restless night. Yet beneath their apparent chaos lay an extraordinarily perceptive mind, one acutely aware of what it wanted to say. Nearly four decades after his death, a new Netflix documentary revisits his story, seeking the man who gradually disappeared behind his own legend.

Born in Brooklyn in 1960 to a Haitian father and a mother of Puerto Rican descent, Basquiat had no conventional artistic training. What he possessed was an early and insatiable curiosity about art, music and history. In the late 1970s, he began leaving cryptic messages on Manhattan walls under the signature SAMO, before making the extraordinary leap from the streets into the city’s galleries. Within a few years, he had become one of the most celebrated figures in American art, his ascent seemingly faster than he could absorb.

His paintings resembled notebooks torn from a turbulent imagination. He drew on human anatomy, boxing, jazz and Black American history, weaving them together with childlike symbols and seemingly spontaneous inscriptions. The crown that appeared repeatedly in his work became his most recognizable visual signature, as though he were bestowing a kind of royalty upon those history had overlooked.

His friendship and artistic collaboration with Andy Warhol brought him deeper into a world of celebrity and wealth. Yet an unresolved contradiction remained: here was an artist embraced by an affluent cultural establishment whose work confronted racism, power and inequality with remarkable intensity.

Behind the acclaim, Basquiat’s private life remained troubled. Difficult relationships, the pressures of fame and drug addiction shaped a life that ended in 1988, when he was just 27. But reducing him to the familiar image of the tortured genius obscures something essential about his achievement. He was a voracious consumer of images and ideas, an artist whose apparent spontaneity was underpinned by a sophisticated critical intelligence.

Perhaps his greatest mystery lay in the distance between what he disclosed to the world and what he kept to himself.

That is the territory Netflix’s documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat seeks to explore. Drawing on testimony from family and friends, previously unseen works and rare archival material, the film attempts to recover the person beneath the mythology. Premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Festival, it is scheduled to arrive on Netflix on December 11.

There is a striking irony in the journey of an artist who began by leaving fleeting messages on city walls, only to have one of his paintings sell for $110.5 million.

But Basquiat’s significance cannot be measured in auction prices. He left behind an artistic language that resists any single interpretation, and a brief life that continues to invite scrutiny. Perhaps that is what makes his work so enduring: for all the words written about it, his paintings still seem to be guarding a secret.

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Nada Salam

One of the misfortunes of being Jensen Huang is living in an age when a man can no longer make a romantic mistake without attracting the attention of intelligence agencies, corporate directors, and the United States Congress.

The man who helped create some of the world’s most sophisticated computer chips has apparently discovered that managing human emotions is considerably more complicated than managing billions of transistors.

The story began with a New York Times report about Huang’s relationship with Alice Huang, a Chinese businesswoman whom American intelligence officials reportedly identified as an asset of Beijing.

After Nvidia initially maintained that there was nothing unusual about the professional relationship, Huang acknowledged having been unfaithful to his wife and apologized to his family and employees. The company’s board subsequently launched an independent investigation.

And so, what might once have ended with an elaborate apology and an extravagantly expensive bouquet of flowers became a matter of national security.

The trouble is that the story is not entirely amusing.

Huang is no ordinary corporate executive. He leads a company whose chips sit at the heart of the technological rivalry between the United States and China. When he sits down to dinner, he does not arrive entirely alone, at least in geopolitical terms. Questions about semiconductors, export restrictions, and the future of artificial intelligence accompany him to the table.

Still, there is an important distinction between a man’s private conduct and his public responsibilities.

Marital infidelity, however painful to those involved, is not in itself an act of treason. Nor has any public evidence established that Huang disclosed classified information or knowingly participated in espionage.

Washington, however, rarely misses an opportunity to turn an anxiety into a congressional hearing.

The episode raises a legitimate question: Where does an executive’s right to privacy end when the knowledge he possesses becomes part of his country’s strategic power?

Perhaps Huang assumed, as many extraordinarily successful men seem to, that professional brilliance offered some protection against personal misjudgment.

History suggests otherwise. It is crowded with men who could anticipate market movements, understand military strategy, and negotiate billion-dollar agreements, yet somehow failed to recognize the warning signs in their own relationships.

Nvidia, meanwhile, has spent years celebrating processing speed and computational power. It now faces a problem that even its most advanced chips cannot resolve: how to protect shareholders and sensitive information without turning corporate governance into a form of bedroom surveillance.

The public does not need an intimate inventory of Huang’s private life. It needs to know whether his relationships influenced corporate decisions or compromised information of strategic importance.

Until evidence answers those questions, judgment belongs with investigators, and marital difficulties with the people living through them.

After all, not every broken heart is a threat to national security — even when it belongs to the man whose chips are helping power the future of artificial intelligence.

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Few things in international relations are more bitter than a friendship that becomes a burden, or an ally that helps impoverish the very country it claims to protect. Such is the paradox of Iraq’s troubled relationship with Iran: a nation whose need for economic independence grows ever more urgent, even as its choices narrow under the weight of Iranian influence and the entanglement of politics, sectarian loyalties, and armed power.

When shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted, Baghdad had no say in the decision to go to war. Yet it found itself paying the price. Iraq’s losses reached approximately $60 billion. Iraqis discovered that their oil, the lifeblood of their economy, could become hostage to a conflict waged by a neighboring country supposedly regarded as an ally.

But the economic bleeding neither begins nor ends at Hormuz.

Networks smuggling Iraqi fuel generate, by some estimates, at least $1 billion annually for Iran and its proxies. The US Treasury went further, accusing networks linked to the Revolutionary Guards of introducing counterfeit Iraqi dinars, allegedly printed in Iran, into Iraq’s financial system.

In agriculture and industry, the irony is more painful still. With its land, water, and oil wealth, Iraq possesses the foundations of a substantial productive economy. Instead, it has become a market for Iranian goods, while its farmers and manufacturers struggle against unequal competition and inadequate protection. More troubling still is the talk of direct Iranian instructions to allied factions to obstruct the development of these sectors. The networks of influence and vested interests certainly invite an uncomfortable question: who benefits from Iraq’s continued economic weakness?

Then there is gas, perhaps the clearest illustration of the predicament.

Iraq imports Iranian gas to generate electricity while its efforts to develop domestic production face repeated attacks. In Kurdistan, the Khor Mor gas field has become a target for drones, disrupting energy production and undermining Iraq’s quest for self-sufficiency.

The problem is not Iran as a neighbor, nor Shiism as a religious identity. It is the exploitation of sectarian ties as a cover for political and military influence, subordinating Iraqi national interests to calculations made beyond its borders.

Iran pursues its national interests. That is what states do. The tragedy begins when Iraq is expected to sacrifice its own national interests in the name of alliance, its economy in the name of brotherhood, and its sovereignty in the name of sectarian solidarity.

Iraq need not become Iran’s enemy to reclaim its independence. It must simply recognize that a friendship which cripples its economy is a form of aggression by other means.

A nation denied the freedom to develop its wealth, protect its currency, secure its oil and gas fields, and control its borders will not be saved by the abundance of its allies.

The cruelest form of dependence is to make a country pay for wars it never chose, and then demand that it call the sacrifice loyalty.

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Dr. Abdulrahman Al Dhaheri

At a time when diplomatic rhetoric has grown louder while results have become harder to achieve, the UAE’s role in the Russia-Ukraine conflict stands out. There are no showpiece conferences or grand declarations dominating the news. Instead, a quiet, sustained effort is measured by a simple count: the number of people returned to their families.

The figures are more than statistics. When the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the success of its 27th mediation effort last October, bringing the total number of prisoners exchanged to 8,537, it marked another step in a method built incrementally. The process began with limited exchanges before its humanitarian impact grew. By the 15th mediation in May 2025, the cumulative total stood at 4,181 prisoners; it has nearly doubled in less than two years. That accelerating pace points to a fundamental negotiating reality: trust between parties locked in a fierce conflict is not granted all at once. It takes shape and is renewed with each successful exchange. Had any one of those operations failed, the process might not have continued.

This philosophy is captured in the words of Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president, who has spoken of the country’s refusal to be merely another party to a political alignment, and of its determination instead to play a useful, effective role rather than simply add to the numbers. Abu Dhabi has faced criticism for keeping channels open with both Moscow and Kyiv at a time when many wanted it to make a clear choice. Yet this tension lies at the heart of independent diplomacy: a mediator who takes sides immediately loses the ability to speak to the other party. Those who maintain open lines with everyone can become the only bridge left when others have collapsed.

What is striking about the UAE’s approach is that its humanitarian record has not remained separate from diplomacy at the highest level. In February 2026, Abu Dhabi hosted the second round of trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States, alongside the announcement of another prisoner exchange. The connection carries a practical lesson: humanitarian efforts can prepare the ground for political dialogue. Parties that find agreement on an issue as complex as the return of prisoners may gradually come to see that sitting at the table opens a path to negotiation without amounting to surrender.

These efforts naturally yield diplomatic benefits that strengthen the UAE’s international standing. But those gains rest on a mutually reinforcing equation: diplomatic influence follows tangible work on the ground that helps families welcome their loved ones home. It is not simply the product of a public relations campaign.

There are, nevertheless, opposing views worth considering. Some critics argue that, despite its humanitarian importance, the mediation has remained tactical and has done nothing to end a war now in its fifth year. Others see pragmatic neutrality as giving Moscow diplomatic and economic breathing space. Defenders of the UAE’s approach offer a more restrained assessment: a mediator cannot impose peace agreements on sovereign states. Its role is to keep channels of dialogue open and create conditions in which those seeking a solution can pursue one. Meanwhile, the safe return of thousands of prisoners is a tangible outcome whose significance cannot be dismissed.

UAE mediation may not offer a magic solution to a conflict of this scale. But it offers an important lesson in managing major crises: the loudest players are not always the most effective. Sometimes the deepest and most lasting impact belongs to those who work quietly and patiently to keep the door ajar until conditions allow it to open fully.

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We watched as Democrats swept through the midterm elections, reclaiming control of Congress and delivering a resounding political defeat to Donald Trump. Yet amid the celebrations, I found myself wondering whether the party that had just won back Washington was prepared for a far more consequential struggle: the battle over artificial intelligence.

The Democrats may have found common ground in opposing Trump, but when it comes to AI, they remain a party divided against itself.

On one side stands the progressive wing, increasingly convinced that artificial intelligence could deepen America’s economic inequalities, concentrate wealth in the hands of a few technology giants, and undermine the livelihoods of millions of workers. On the other are the party’s more pragmatic voices, many with close ties to Silicon Valley, who fear that excessive regulation could surrender America’s technological advantage to China.

Both sides have a point. And therein lies the problem.

For Bernie Sanders and others on the progressive left, the question is no longer simply whether AI can make America more productive. It is who will own that productivity, who will profit from it, and who will ultimately pay the price.

For the technology industry’s political allies, however, the greater danger lies in slowing an innovation race that Washington increasingly regards as a matter of national security.

What interests me most is how little this argument resembles the familiar ideological battles of American politics. Artificial intelligence is unsettling the very assumptions upon which both parties have built their economic identities.

Democrats have traditionally presented themselves as defenders of working Americans. Yet some of the most powerful

companies developing technologies capable of replacing human labour belong to an industry that has long enjoyed considerable influence within the party.

That contradiction is becoming harder to ignore.

For a worker worried about losing a job, the promise of American technological supremacy offers little reassurance. Nor does it matter whether the algorithm replacing that worker was developed in California or Beijing.

The political challenge is therefore not merely to regulate artificial intelligence, but to determine how its extraordinary economic rewards can be distributed across society.

Recent polling by the Pew Research Center suggests that Democratic voters are increasingly anxious about AI’s consequences. Their concerns are not necessarily rooted in hostility to technology, but in a growing suspicion that its benefits will flow upwards while its costs are borne by everyone else.

And yet, winning Congress does not mean controlling the future of AI policy. Trump remains in the White House, armed with the presidential veto, while the largest technology companies possess financial resources and political influence that transcend party boundaries.

The Democrats now have an opportunity to challenge corporate power, demand transparency, and place workers at the centre of the technological debate.

But I suspect their greatest test will be intellectual rather than legislative.

Can a political party built around protecting labour reinvent itself for an economy in which human labour may no longer occupy the position it once did?

The Democrats have won an election. Whether they can develop a convincing answer to artificial intelligence is an altogether different question.

And that answer may prove considerably more important than their latest electoral victory.

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Nada Salam

Artificial intelligence is no longer simply a technological contest to build smarter machines. It has become one of the greatest concentrations of capital in modern economic history, with companies barely a decade old commanding valuations that rival the world’s most powerful corporations.

The figures are extraordinary, even by Silicon Valley’s standards.

In March 2026, OpenAI announced a $122 billion funding round that valued the company at $852 billion. Months later, it entered discussions to raise another $30 billion at a targeted pre-money valuation of $1.25 trillion. Yet an October report by The Wall Street Journal indicated that commitments had reached only about $11 billion, suggesting that even the most enthusiastic investors have their limits.

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has followed a similarly remarkable trajectory. In May, it raised $65 billion at a valuation of $965 billion. By October, it had filed for an initial public offering, with estimates placing its potential market value between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion.

These are astonishing sums for companies still in the early stages of establishing sustainable business models.

But the numbers also expose a fundamental misunderstanding that increasingly shapes the public conversation about artificial intelligence.

Capital raised is not revenue. Valuation is not cash. And exponential growth is not the same as profitability.

A company valued at $1 trillion does not possess $1 trillion in its bank accounts. That figure represents what investors believe its equity is worth, based largely on expectations of future earnings, market dominance, and the economic opportunities its technology may create.

The distinction is especially important in artificial intelligence, where the financial demands of building the technology are almost as remarkable as the technology itself.

Training advanced models requires enormous computing capacity. Deploying those models to millions of users demands sophisticated data centers, specialized chips, vast amounts of electricity, and some of the most expensive engineering talent in the world.

Unlike earlier generations of software businesses, which could often expand rapidly with relatively modest additional infrastructure, frontier AI companies must continually invest in physical computing capacity.

That creates an unusual economic relationship between the industry’s largest investors and its most ambitious developers.

Technology giants provide financing to AI companies that, in turn, spend substantial amounts purchasing computing services and infrastructure from those same investors.

There is nothing inherently illegitimate about this arrangement. Strategic investment has long played a role in technological development.

But it complicates the interpretation of revenue growth and raises questions about how much demand ultimately comes from independent customers rather than an interconnected financing ecosystem.

Anthropic illustrates another dimension of the challenge.

Despite generating more than $16 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026, the company reported a net loss of $80.7 billion. Most of that loss was attributable to non-cash accounting adjustments associated with financial instruments.

For investors, separating accounting losses from operating cash consumption is essential. Equally important is determining whether the underlying business can eventually generate sufficient cash to finance its expansion without repeated injections of outside capital.

Ultimately, the investment case rests on three assumptions: that demand for AI services will continue growing rapidly, that computing costs will fall as technology improves, and that competition will not erode profit margins before the industry reaches maturity.

None is guaranteed.

Yet dismissing the investment boom as irrational speculation would be equally simplistic.

Artificial intelligence could become an essential layer of global economic infrastructure, comparable in significance to electricity, telecommunications, or the internet. Its applications already extend across software development, scientific research, financial services, healthcare, and industrial operations.

If the technology delivers sustained improvements in productivity, the resulting economic value could be enormous.

The difficulty is determining how much of that value will accrue to the companies developing the models, rather than to the businesses and consumers using them.

History offers a useful distinction.

The internet transformed commerce and communication beyond recognition, but many of the companies financed during the dot-com boom never survived to enjoy its rewards.

A technological revolution can be entirely genuine while the financial expectations surrounding it prove excessive.

That is the central paradox of today’s AI investment frenzy.

The technology may justify extraordinary optimism about the future of the global economy without necessarily justifying every extraordinary valuation attached to it.

For shareholders, the decisive measures will eventually be familiar ones: operating margins, free cash flow, returns on invested capital, and the durability of competitive advantages.

The question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will transform the economy. That transformation is already underway.

The question is whether the profits generated by that transformation will be sufficient to justify the unprecedented sums being committed today.

Financial history does not ultimately judge technological revolutions by the capital they attract, but by the economic value they create once the excitement of financing gives way to the discipline of returns.

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Ahmed Kawah

There are moments in the life of nations when a single sentence exposes the distance between a troubled past and an uncertain future.

When Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi stood in Damascus beside Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and declared that Iraqis and Syrians were “one people in two states,” his words carried a significance far beyond diplomatic courtesy.

For years, Iraqi fighters had crossed that same border not as merchants, investors, or representatives of a friendly government, but as members of Iranian-backed militias fighting to preserve Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship.

Now an Iraqi prime minister was speaking of partnership, economic integration, and a shared destiny.

History has a remarkable capacity for irony.

When Syria’s uprising began in 2011, the relationship between its people and their Iraqi neighbors was increasingly overshadowed by Iran’s determination to keep Assad in power. From 2012 onward, Iraqi armed groups began entering Syria, eventually becoming an integral part of the military effort to sustain his regime.

Among them were Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba, and the Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas Brigade.

They initially justified their involvement as a mission to protect Shiite religious shrines. Yet their operations extended well beyond those sites, drawing them into battles across Syria.

Their intervention was part of a broader Iranian strategy that transformed Syria into a battleground for regional influence.

The consequences were devastating. Human rights organizations documented grave abuses committed by Assad’s forces and their allies, including unlawful killings and attacks against civilians. Other armed factions also committed serious violations.

For many Syrians, the arrival of Iraqi militias was a particularly bitter experience. These were fighters from a neighboring Arab country whose people shared generations of history, trade, family connections, and cultural affinity with Syria.

Yet the men arriving with weapons were serving a political and military project shaped in Tehran.

The distinction matters. Iraq was never synonymous with those militias, just as the Syrian people were never synonymous with the Assad regime.

Both societies paid heavily for the ambitions of armed movements and foreign powers that claimed to act in their interests.

Then the political landscape changed.

Assad’s government collapsed in late 2024. On October 28, 2026, al-Zaidi arrived in Damascus for the first official visit by an Iraqi prime minister since the regime’s fall.

Standing alongside al-Sharaa, he spoke of strengthening economic, social, and security cooperation, while coordinating positions on regional and international affairs.

The discussions extended beyond diplomatic declarations.

They included proposals to export Iraqi oil through Syria’s Mediterranean port of Baniyas, with a targeted capacity of up to 2 million barrels a day, alongside expanded trade and agricultural cooperation.

There is a profound difference between these two visions of the Iraqi-Syrian relationship.

In one, the border serves as a corridor for armed groups pursuing the objectives of a foreign patron. In the other, it becomes a route for energy, commerce, investment, and economic recovery.

One vision treats geography as an instrument of conflict. The other recognizes it as a source of shared prosperity.

But reconciliation cannot be built upon selective amnesia.

The victims of Syria’s war do not disappear simply because governments change or diplomatic priorities shift. Nor should the pursuit of economic opportunity become an excuse to overlook past abuses.

A durable relationship requires respect for sovereignty, accountability for serious crimes, and a clear rejection of the notion that armed factions may conduct foreign policy independently of the state.

That principle matters as much to Iraq as it does to Syria.

Iraqis themselves have endured decades of dictatorship, sectarian violence, terrorism, and political interference. Their country has repeatedly struggled with the consequences of armed organizations operating beyond effective state authority.

The Syrian experience offers a warning about what happens when such forces become instruments of regional confrontation.

Al-Zaidi’s declaration therefore deserves to be judged not by its eloquence, but by the policies that follow.

Will Baghdad and Damascus turn their shared geography into functioning trade corridors? Will their governments protect one another’s sovereignty? Can economic cooperation replace the networks of armed intervention that once connected the two countries?

These are the questions that matter.

The phrase “one people in two states” is powerful precisely because it invokes a relationship older and deeper than the political conflicts that divided the region.

Iraq and Syria do not need to manufacture a common history. They already possess one.

What they need is a political relationship that allows that history to become an asset rather than a burden.

Syria once saw Iraqi fighters arrive under the banners of Iranian-backed militias. It now receives an Iraqi leader speaking the language of trade, energy, and partnership.

The contrast could hardly be sharper.

Yet history will not measure this diplomatic opening by the warmth of a reception in Damascus or the elegance of a declaration.

It will measure it by whether two neighboring states can finally build a relationship governed by their peoples’ interests rather than the ambitions of militias and their foreign sponsors.

The real promise of one people in two states is not political unity. It is the possibility that neither state will again become a battlefield for forces claiming to speak in the name of its people.

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The foundations of international relations are no longer defined solely by geographical proximity or traditional political ideologies. Increasingly, they rest on intricate networks of geostrategic interests designed to withstand shocks in an era of fluid threats and shifting alliances among the world’s major powers.

Viewed through this lens, the strategic partnership between the United Arab Emirates and Canada represents far more than a trade agreement between two nations separated by oceans. Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s visit to Ottawa, culminating in the signing of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) following an exceptionally swift 47 days of negotiations, underscores a broader transformation in how states cultivate influence and safeguard their long-term interests.

At the heart of this partnership lies a shared understanding of the emerging international order. For Abu Dhabi, the agreement forms part of an ambitious effort to redefine economic national security through a diversified, multipolar network of investments and strategic partnerships.

The UAE’s commitment to facilitating up to C$70 billion in investment opportunities across critical minerals, artificial intelligence, and supply chains is not simply about gaining access to the Canadian market. It is also about constructing a geopolitical safety net that can secure reliable access to essential resources and advanced technologies, regardless of disruptions to regional shipping routes or instability affecting nearby ports.

For Canada, meanwhile, the UAE offers something equally valuable: a strategically positioned partner with the financial resources, logistical infrastructure, and diplomatic flexibility to connect markets and political spheres.

Beyond serving as a gateway to the Gulf and the wider Middle East, the Emirates has cultivated an unusual capacity to maintain productive relationships across competing centres of global power. Its relatively autonomous foreign policy and extensive network of international partnerships give Ottawa access to a country capable of navigating geopolitical divisions without being confined to a single strategic bloc.

The complementarity is particularly compelling. Canada’s expertise in clean energy and critical minerals, combined with Emirati capital and large-scale operational capabilities, creates opportunities for both countries to become more influential players in the security and resilience of global supply chains.

Yet the significance of this relationship extends beyond its immediate economic benefits.

What is emerging is a potentially important model of cooperation between middle powers: one in which countries do not merely adapt to competition among global superpowers but actively build their own networks of strategic resilience.

Such partnerships offer a means of protecting food security, industrial capacity, and technological sovereignty without relying exclusively on traditional military alliances or the political calculations of larger states.

This is where the UAE–Canada partnership acquires its broader geopolitical significance. Rather than treating distance as a constraint, both countries are seeking to turn economic complementarity into a source of strategic autonomy.

The ultimate measure of success, however, will not be the scale of the commitments announced or the speed with which the agreement was negotiated. It will be whether those commitments translate into commercially viable investments, productive enterprises, and durable economic relationships.

If they do, the partnership could demonstrate a defining principle of contemporary statecraft: geography matters less when nations possess the capital, capabilities, and diplomatic imagination to build lasting strategic connections across continents.

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Nada Salam

Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI platform, is preparing for a Nasdaq debut that could become the largest initial public offering in history. With its IPO prospectus released on October 26, the question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will transform the global economy, but how much investors should pay for that transformation.

Valuation estimates range from $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion, while the offering could reportedly raise approximately $100 billion. Those figures remain preliminary, with the company yet to finalize its share price or offering size.

The operating numbers explain the enthusiasm.

Anthropic generated approximately $16.3 billion in revenue during the first half of 2026, nearly 14 times the figure reported for the same period a year earlier. The extraordinary expansion reflects surging corporate demand for AI tools, particularly in software development, data analysis, and business automation.

But behind that remarkable growth lies a considerably more complicated financial picture.

The company reported a net loss of $80.7 billion during the first six months of the year. Crucially, approximately $72.4 billion resulted from accounting adjustments to the valuation of financial instruments rather than equivalent operating cash outflows.

That distinction matters. An accounting loss does not necessarily represent cash disappearing from the business. It does not, however, eliminate the enormous costs of training advanced AI models, operating data centers, and securing computing capacity.

Anthropic’s investment case rests on a straightforward but unproven economic assumption: revenue will eventually grow faster than operating expenses, while advances in chips and model efficiency will reduce the cost of delivering AI services.

Investors are therefore pricing the company primarily on expected future revenue rather than current profitability.

Estimates previously reported by Reuters suggested that Anthropic’s annual revenue could reach $190 billion to $200 billion by 2028.

Under that scenario, a $1.5 trillion valuation would represent roughly 7.5 times projected 2028 revenue. At $2 trillion, the multiple rises to approximately 10 times. Both calculations depend on forecasts that remain far from guaranteed.

Another concern is Anthropic’s dependence on Amazon and Google, which serve as investors, computing infrastructure providers, and important distribution partners. These relationships accelerate expansion but create questions about commercial independence and future profit margins.

The proposed voting structure introduces another complication. Anthropic’s seven founders would retain 50.1% of voting power after listing, leaving public shareholders with economic ownership but limited influence over corporate decisions.

Ultimately, Anthropic’s IPO will test more than investors’ appetite for artificial intelligence.

It will test whether explosive revenue growth can translate into sustainable profits and positive cash flow.

Financial markets can fund the future. They cannot exempt it from economic reality.

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German political philosopher Carl Schmitt placed the distinction between friend and enemy at the heart of politics. For Schmitt, a state’s political identity rests not merely on its institutions, borders, or interests, but on its ability to recognize those who threaten its security and distinguish them from those with whom it shares common interests.

When a state loses that distinction, its foreign policy risks becoming a series of contradictions, regardless of its wealth, influence, or military strength.

Saudi Arabia now faces precisely this dilemma.

The kingdom’s vital infrastructure and economic interests have repeatedly come under attack from the Iran-backed Houthi movement. Airports, energy facilities, and critical infrastructure have been targeted, threatening the economic foundations of Saudi Arabia’s ambitious development plans.

These are not simply border skirmishes. They are attacks on the arteries of the Saudi economy and the infrastructure underpinning its national transformation.

Saudi officials have accused Iran of encouraging Houthi attacks and continuing to provide the group with weapons and training.

That raises a question Schmitt would have considered fundamental: If a country supports forces attacking your airports, energy facilities, and strategic economic interests, what more must it do before you recognize it as an enemy?

Yet Riyadh’s diplomatic response tells a different story.

Rather than translating that assessment into a clearer strategic position, Saudi Arabia has maintained a remarkably accommodating posture toward Tehran. In July, Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed Al-Khuraiji traveled to Iran to offer condolences following the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. On October 26, Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman visited Tehran as part of a regional delegation seeking a diplomatic way out of the Iranian crisis.

There may be pragmatic calculations behind these visits. Riyadh may reasonably believe that preventing another war serves its national interests.

But diplomacy with an adversary is not the problem. Even enemies negotiate. The problem begins when preserving relations with a threatening power appears to take precedence over confronting the threats themselves.

Schmitt’s distinction does not require a state to declare war on its enemies. It requires the state to understand the nature of the threat and organize its political choices accordingly.

Peace built on a clear understanding of interests and power is fundamentally different from accommodation that allows an adversary to continue its hostile conduct without meaningful consequences.

Saudi Arabia has placed economic transformation at the center of its national future. Protecting that future demands strategic clarity equal to the scale of its ambitions.

A kingdom cannot indefinitely separate the identification of threats from the conduct of its foreign policy.

The greatest danger facing a state is not necessarily an enemy capable of harming it. It is losing the political compass that allows it to distinguish those who threaten its interests from those who protect them.

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