Who is Krishna Rao, Indian-origin CFO driving Anthropic's AI boom?
What's the story
Krishna Rao, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Anthropic, is at the forefront of Silicon Valley's unprecedented artificial intelligence (AI) boom. He is tasked with steering the company through its rapid growth and massive capital requirements amid fierce competition from players like OpenAI. Just three months after being valued at $350 billion, Anthropic is reportedly set to raise $30 billion in fresh funding at a staggering $900 billion valuation. This is more than OpenAI's valuation of around $852 billion.
Career path
Rao's education and early career
Rao, a summa cum laude graduate in economics from Harvard University, started his career as a consultant at Bain & Company. He then moved to Blackstone as a Principal in the Private Equity Group where he evaluated and executed transactions across various sectors including consumer, retail, business services and financial technology. Rao later joined Airbnb as Finance Director before becoming CFO of Cedar and Fanatics Commerce.
Crisis management
His role in securing funding for Airbnb during the pandemic
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rao played a key role in securing $2 billion in debt and equity funding for Airbnb. His efforts helped the company launch its successful $47 billion IPO in December 2020. He joined Anthropic as its first CFO in May 2024, when the company was just beginning to generate meaningful revenue.
Growth strategy
Rao's financial stewardship
Under Rao's financial stewardship, Anthropic has seen its annualized run rate skyrocket from $87 million in January 2024 to $1 billion by December of the same year. The company has also been aggressively expanding internationally, with a new office in Bengaluru, India. Recently, it signed a deal with SpaceX for all computing capacity at its Colossus 1 data center and is also looking to partner with SpaceX for multi-gigawatt orbital AI compute capacity.
Strategic decisions
Compute is the lifeblood of our business: Rao
Rao considers decisions on compute procurement as some of the most consequential ones at Anthropic. He said, "Compute that we procure is the lifeblood of our business. It is the canvas on which everything else gets built...If you buy too much compute, you go out of business. If you buy too little compute, you can't serve your customers and you're not at the frontier."
Business expansion
Recent developments at Anthropic
Last week, Anthropic announced a new $1.5 billion AI services company with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, and Hellman & Friedman. The firm will deploy Claude to mid-sized businesses in sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, and financial services, among others. Rao has also had to navigate legal challenges with the US government after the Pentagon flagged Anthropic as a supply-chain risk over an AI safety guardrail dispute.