Anthropic Prepares Supervoting Shares for Founders Before IPO
Anthropic is preparing to give Dario Amodei and its other founders a class of stock with extra voting power ahead of its IPO, according to The Information, matched by Bloomberg. Amodei owns only about 2% of the company, so the supervoting shares would let the founders keep control despite small stakes. A long-term trust also governs the board.
Key Points:
- Anthropic is setting up this structure ahead of a potentially massive initial public offering (IPO).
- The plan involves issuing a new class of stock with enhanced voting rights to Amodei and his co-founders.
- This allows them to maintain control over the company's direction even after outside shareholders enter the picture.
- Amodei owns a relatively small stake (2%) compared to other founder-CEOs taking companies public recently, making this arrangement unusual.
- The founders have split the company fairly evenly among themselves, with each holding a roughly equal share.
- Supervoting shares are part of a broader trend in tech where dual-class share structures protect founders from shareholder pressure (as seen with Mark Zuckerberg at Meta and Evan Spiegel at Snap).
- A long-term trust controls the board membership, further concentrating control among the founders and trust holders.
- Anthropic's IPO is expected this fall, potentially ahead of rival OpenAI.
- The company was valued at a staggering $965 billion in a recent funding round, surpassing OpenAI for the first time.