In Typescript everything needs to have a type at compile time, and any is the default type when you(programmer) and Typescript(typechecker) can’t figure out what type something is.
let c = a + b; line would throw a compile-time exception, but here by explicitly annotating a and b with the any type, we avoid the exception.
let a: any = 666;
let b: any = ['danger'];
let c = a + b;
console.log('c=', c);
any makes our value behave like it would in regular Javascript, and totally prevents the typechecker from working its magic.
It’s the last resort type, we should avoid it when possible.