Two Claude Code engineers exit Anthropic weeks before IPO

Anthropic confidentially filed paperwork for a U.S. IPO back in June, and has since been reported to be targeting a listing as early as mid-November at a valuation between $1.8 trillion and $2 trillion, which would surpass SpaceX's $75 billion raise earlier this year as the largest public offering ever. The company has historically had one of the lowest voluntary attrition rates among major AI labs, partly attributed to tighter restrictions on employee share liquidity compared to rivals like OpenAI. An imminent IPO changes that calculus by giving vested employees a clear path to cashing out their equity, raising the possibility that Shihipar and Morris are early examples of a broader wave of departures still to come. The timing is also notable given how actively Anthropic has otherwise been recruiting talent, even as it now loses two developers deeply embedded in Claude Code, which the company has positioned as central to its growth story and enterprise pitch to investors.