In Anthropic vs. OpenAI Race to IPO, First Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Best

Anthropic’s filing of its initial public offering paperwork last week means the maker of Claude Code has pulled slightly ahead of OpenAI as the two go head-to-head with their planned IPOs.

While bankers and lawyers say there are good reasons for a company to beat its rival to the public markets, especially if it fears its rival’s offering will outshine it, that won’t necessarily help the stock outperform, a review of rivaling IPOs from the last decade shows.