A back-of-the-napkin estimate of software developer salaries:
There are some ~1.5 million software developers in the US per BLS data, or ~4 million if using a broader definition
Median salary is $120-140k. Let's say $120k to be conservative.
This puts total software developer salaries at $180 billion.
So, that puts $1 billion in Claude revenue in perspective; only about 0.5% of software developer salaries. Even if it only improved productivity 5%, it'd be paying for itself handily - which means we can't take the $1 billion in revenues to indicate that it's providing a big boost in productivity.
If it makes a 5% improvement, that would make it a $9 billion dollar per year industry. What’s our projected capex for AI projects next five years again?
There are some ~1.5 million software developers in the US per BLS data, or ~4 million if using a broader definition Median salary is $120-140k. Let's say $120k to be conservative.
This puts total software developer salaries at $180 billion.
So, that puts $1 billion in Claude revenue in perspective; only about 0.5% of software developer salaries. Even if it only improved productivity 5%, it'd be paying for itself handily - which means we can't take the $1 billion in revenues to indicate that it's providing a big boost in productivity.