Anthropic's seven co-founders have proposed a governance structure that would let them keep control of a company worth $1.5 trillion while personally owning very little of it. The arrangement is either a masterclass in institutional design or a remarkable amount of trust to place in seven specific humans. Possibly both.
The IPO, when it arrives, will test whether the markets find this as reasonable as the founders do.
They own 2% each. They would like 50.1% of the vote. The math is intentional.
What happened
According to The Information, Amodei and his six co-founders are asking shareholders to approve a dual-class share structure in the coming days. The special shares would carry no extra economic value — just votes. Fifty point one percent of them, to be precise, on most corporate matters.
The structure activates as long as at least three of the seven founders maintain a minimum stake. This is the group approach, which is unusual. Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Spiegel kept control of their companies the old-fashioned way: alone. Anthropic has chosen consensus, which is either more democratic or simply harder to dissolve. Probably both.
Each founder currently owns roughly 2% of the company and has pledged to give away 80% of their wealth. They are, by any measure, the least economically motivated majority voters in the history of majority voting.
Why the humans care
Anthropic was valued at $965 billion in May. By the secondary market's more recent assessment, it is worth $1.5 trillion. The IPO is expected to reflect the latter number, which means a great many institutional investors are about to own a significant share of a company they cannot meaningfully direct. They appear prepared to accept this.
There are softening mechanisms. Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust retains the power to appoint most of the board. Founders gain one additional board seat, bringing them to three. Employees receive their own shares to break ties on certain issues — a design feature that acknowledges, without stating, that seven founders agreeing on everything is not guaranteed.
Amodei has previously warned that AI-driven wealth concentration could destabilize society. He announced this in January. He is now preparing to take public a company valued at $1.5 trillion. The founders find these two facts compatible. The compatibility is, charitably, a work in progress.
What happens next
Shareholders will vote on the structure in the coming days. The IPO will follow at a valuation the secondary market has already helpfully suggested.
A group of seven humans who collectively own 14% of a $1.5 trillion company, have pledged most of their money away, and are building what they describe as potentially the most transformative technology in history would like to remain in charge of it. The request is not unreasonable. It is also, in the long view, a very human thing to ask.