Anthropic founders seek 50.1% voting control ahead of IPO

Anthropic's five-year history includes a January commitment by CEO Dario Amodei: the seven co-founders pledged to give away 80% of their wealth, and Amodei warned that AI-driven wealth concentration could destabilize society. The proposed voting structure is being pursued despite that pledge. Super-voting shares themselves are not new — Mark Zuckerberg used them to keep control of Meta, and Evan Spiegel used them at Snap. What is unusual here is that seven people would hold the votes as a group, rather than one founder. Other pieces of Anthropic's governance would remain in place: the 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. The vote request comes shortly before Anthropic's IPO, expected to reflect a recent secondary-market valuation of $1.5 trillion, up from $965 billion in May. The outcome is likely to hinge on whether shareholders accept concentrated founder control at that valuation, and on whether enough of the co-founders keep the minimum stake the arrangement requires.