One startup CEO says AI’s six-figure monthly bill is a milestone, not a red flag.
In a LinkedIn post on Saturday, Swan AI CEO Amos Bar-Joseph shared a screenshot of what he said was an Antropic receipt totaling $113,421.87, writing, “I’ve never been more proud of a bill.”
The approach reflects a broader shift among technology executives, with some bosses arguing that spending on AI could replace traditional hiring.
One such company is Swan AI, which builds AI agents for sales and marketing teams. Compare spending on “tokens,” units of data processed by AI models, against other standard business metrics such as sales pipeline, closed deals, and customer support outcomes.
Bar-Joseph told Business Insider that his four-person company already has annual recurring revenue in the “seven-figure” range. He also said the company has increased ARR by about $200,000 in the past week alone.
“The number we are actually optimizing for is $10 million ARR per employee,” he said in an email. “That’s the real north star for us.”
He said he is leaning toward increasing AI spending as a way to meet goals without hiring more employees.
“The question we always ask is: Will this spending allow us to scale without adding headcount? If so, then we’re doing well,” he added.
Other Silicon Valley executives have made similar arguments, with some asking employees to spend more.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he expects a $500,000 employee to spend at least $250,000 on AI tokens, and Box CEO Aaron Levie said computing budgets for companies in all sectors will continue to grow.
Other companies, such as Chamath Palihapitiya’s 8090 Startup Incubator, are also becoming wary of spending on AI.
“The problem is that costs are going up three times every three months,” he said on an episode of “All-In Podcast” in March. “My income is not like that.”
Swan AI declines to provide exact revenue numbers, making it unclear how AI spending compares to overall profit margins. The company’s most recent Anthropic bill is due April 15 and is more than double the previous month’s bill, according to Bar-Joseph’s LinkedIn post. He previously showed a $51,217.56 invoice due in February and a $27,690.69 invoice due in March. Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bar-Joseph says his company has always spent more on AI than its four employees.
He also said that as the company scales up, it could create more jobs for human workers.
“I want to be clear about what this actually means. This is not anti-human play; quite the opposite,” he told Business Insider. “When intelligence reaches the limits of what we can do, we’re going to adopt it. We’re not there yet, we’re not even close to it.”