Anthropic’s founders want to stay in charge after the company goes public. According to The Information, the company is asking shareholders to approve a structure “in the coming days” that would give CEO Dario Amodei and his six co-founders special shares carrying a combined 50.1% of the vote on most corporate matters, as long as at least three of them keep a minimum stake. This isn’t a new idea; super-voting shares are how Mark Zuckerberg kept control of Meta, and how Evan Spiegel maintained his hold of Snap.
What’s unusual is the group approach. The seven co-founders reportedly own just 2% of the company apiece, Amodei included, and have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth, a commitment the CEO announced in January alongside a warning that AI-driven wealth concentration could destabilize society. The new shares carry no extra economic value, but they’d preserve the group’s control once the company starts trading publicly.
There are twists, too: Anthropic’s Long-Term Benefit Trust would still choose most of the board; the founders’ board seats would grow from two to three; and employees would get their own stock to break ties on some issues. Five-year-old Anthropic was valued at $965 billion in May. The company was recently valued at $1.5 trillion on the secondary market, and its upcoming IPO is expected to reflect that new valuation.
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