Anthropic co-founders intend to sell 3,378,378 shares each as part of an initial public offering that could value the company at $1.4 trillion, according to an S-1 filing. At a midrange price of $74 per share, each of the seven founders would receive just under $250 million. The filing lists the potential cash proceeds for each founder as ranging from $236 million at a $70 share price to $264 million at a $78 share price.
The group of co-founders includes CEO Dario Amodei, president and chair Daniela Amodei, chief compute officer Tom Brown, head of public benefit Jack Clark, chief science officer Jared Kaplan, chief architect Sam McCandlish, and interpretability research lead Christopher Olah. Following the sale, the seven individuals will collectively hold roughly 22% of the total outstanding Class A shares, with each founder owning approximately 3.2% of that class.
While the founders' stake in the company's total equity will be smaller than their Class A holdings due to nonvoting Class N shares held by investors such as Amazon and Google, the group will maintain control of the company. Each founder will receive one share of Class F stock carrying supervoting rights, allowing the group to control 51.1% of the votes. The filing notes that no single founder will hold significantly more shares or votes than the others.
Demand for the offering appears high according to the S-1 filing. Board member Reed Hastings indicated an intention to purchase $300 million worth of shares through a donor-advised fund, while board member Christopher Liddell intends to purchase $3 million worth of shares.
Anthropic was formed in 2021 by the seven former OpenAI employees following disagreements regarding the direction of AI development. The company has maintained a public focus on AI safety throughout its operations.
