Seven Founders Share Holdings Evenly, Each Worth Over $17.8 Billion
AI startup Anthropic is about to go public, and its conversational large language model Claude has been widely adopted by the market. According to reports, the seven founders are expected to hold combined wealth of more than $125 billion, or about NT$4 trillion, becoming an Xinxing billionaire group in the AI industry. Each founder currently holds about 232 million to 244 million shares, distributed almost evenly among the founders. Based on the expected offering price of $74 per share, each person's stake is worth more than $17.8 billion.
Among them, co-founder Tom Brown's stake will be worth between $17.8 billion and $18.1 billion. Tom Brown was previously the lead developer of GPT-3 at OpenAI. In addition to Tom Brown, Sam McCandlish, Christopher Olah, Jared Kaplan, Jack Clark and CEO Dario Amodei each hold shares worth more than $17.8 billion. President Daniela Amodei's stake is also worth about $17.9 billion.
Pledge to Donate 80% of Holdings, Retain Control Through Special Shares
Notably, these founders have pledged to donate 80% of their personal holdings to charity. The IPO equity structure grants the founders special voting rights through Class F shares, ensuring they retain 50.1% control over key decisions. Market analysts believe such an arrangement will help the founding team maintain its long-term direction after listing and retain leadership over key technology and corporate governance decisions.
Amazon, Google Stakes Exceed $100 Billion as Venture Investors Also Benefit
In addition to the founders, tech giants Amazon and Google hold stakes in Anthropic worth about $142 billion and $132 billion, respectively. Venture firms including Lightspeed, Menlo Ventures, Bessemer, ICONIQ Capital and Spark Capital will also reap substantial returns from the IPO. Analysts note that Anthropic's IPO marks a turning point for the artificial intelligence market and could rebalance the power dynamic between established giants and startups in AI.