Speaker · Updated
Jeff Richards: latest market views
Notable Capital
Summary
Jeff Richards is a Managing Partner at Notable Capital (formerly GGV Capital), a venture investor focused on AI-driven business applications and vertical SaaS who joined the firm in 2008 after founding two software companies, R4 and QuantumShift.
Chorus has 7 views from Jeff Richards across 2 episodes on CNBC Closing Bell since October 15, 2026. Their latest calls: bullish on Anthropic and Waymo.
Where they stand
Their latest bullish or bearish call on each company.
What they talk about most
The latest views
Newest first. Every quote is checked against the episode's transcript.
AnthropicBullish
Anthropic's fundamentals are very strong: 900% NRR, 85% gross margin, $130B cash, and rising returns on compute.
Anthropic's S-1 shows a strong balance sheet, with $130B in cash, and fast growth with 900% net revenue retention. It now generates $2 of revenue for every $1 of compute spend, up five times in a year. Gross margin is 85%, which shows the company gets better as it scales. Revenue growth of 1,300% has no equivalent in public software. He thinks investors buying today should see strong performance over three to five years.
“when you look at the balance sheet, you look at the growth, you look at the underlying metrics with 900% NRR, you know, now generating $2 for every $1 of compute spend”at 16:15
Open-weight models expand adoption, but customers still pay for the frontier, so closed labs keep their edge.
Open-weight models will play an important role by making the technology cheaper and driving broader enterprise and consumer adoption, which is good for the industry. Consumption of Anthropic tokens is still rising, and 80% of its revenue comes from models released in the last six months. Customers such as hedge funds and biotech labs want the latest models, and open-weight models are typically not the cutting edge. Robotics will need the latest frontier models too.
“Open source, open weight models are gonna play an important role in the AI ecosystem. ... people are willing to pay for the frontier models. When you're talking about an open source or an OpenAWeek model, you're probably not getting the very latest”at 21:06
AnthropicBullish
Anthropic is a great long-term bet; public fears from leaked numbers are overblown and will ease once it publishes data.
Richards argues the market is reacting to rumored or leaked Anthropic numbers rather than published data. He cites reported growth of about 10x year over year and net revenue retention reported above 900%, which he says would be among the highest metrics in IPO history. He expects that once Anthropic publishes numbers and analyst coverage arrives, investor fears will ease. He describes it as a long-term bet and says Notable is a long-term investor in the company, which Scott Wapner notes is an early investor.
“I think as they come out and are publishing their numbers and you have analyst coverage and whatnot, this is such a great long term bet.”at 11:31
AI is only in the first inning; its long-term trajectory could mirror the AWS-era cloud build-out.
Richards compares AI to Amazon's launch of AWS around 2005-2006. In 2010 UBS forecast a cloud addressable market of about $5 billion a year when Amazon was doing about $500 million. Today the hyperscalers combined generate about $350 billion a year. He argues AI is at a similar early stage, so the long-term trajectory matters more than near-term volatility, even with inflation, a war in Iran and rising rates in the background.
“So I think with AI, you're looking at something similar where we're super early. We're in the first out of the first inning.”at 12:16
Failed AI-era IPOs show healthy market discernment, not weakness in the AI IPO pipeline.
Richards argues that the failed or withdrawn IPOs of Xelevation, Firmus and Aura have no real correlation with the AI IPO market for strong companies. He says the market pushing back is a healthy sign of discernment. Firmus, a $50 million revenue company seeking a $30 billion valuation with a manager who had served jail time for insider trading, was not a good bellwether. He contrasts this with the 2021 SPAC era, which he sees as a lack of discernment. He says SpaceX's strong IPO, the biggest of the year, is a better barometer of demand for high-growth names, which bodes well for Anthropic and OpenAI.
“I think it's a sign of a healthy market when the market's discerning.”at 13:52
WaymoBullish
Waymo is one of the best examples of what AI will do for people; the benefit is becoming visible to consumers.
Richards says he sees Waymo cars all over San Francisco and calls them incredible. He argues that AI driving with no human intervention could address the roughly 40,000 annual US road deaths, making Waymo a clear example of AI's end benefit. He notes the service is still limited to a few cities, but expects more consumers to see the benefit as it spreads, which he says could change the narrative around AI and data centers.
“And as more and more people around the country, to me, Waymo is one of the best examples of what is AI going to do for us.”at 16:10
Enterprise AI adoption & AI software
AI adoption is still early: most small businesses use it only primitively, and demand is growing fast.
Richards says more than 70% of small businesses now use AI, but in a primitive way, such as searches or payroll optimization. He expects usage to ramp up and notes that small business owners are also consumers. He adds that infrastructure-layer companies such as Databricks, Fireworks, Baseten, Vercel, Modal and Fal are being relied on and bought by large enterprises. He says these companies are growing 60% to 100% a year, and once they publish metrics the demand side will become clearer.
“Small businesses today, more than 70% are using AI. Now they're using it in a very primitive way, probably for searches or maybe helping them optimize payroll or whatnot.”at 17:11
Shows
- CNBC Closing Bell · 2 episodes
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