{"id":956908,"date":"2026-11-03T15:42:19","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/956908\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T15:42:19","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T15:42:19","slug":"anthropic-was-founded-to-answer-to-humanity-soon-it-will-also-answer-to-wall-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/956908\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthropic was founded to answer to humanity. Soon, it will also answer to Wall Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n In 2021, a group of employees at OpenAI left to start a new company focused on the safe development of artificial intelligence. They named it Anthropic, a word that means \u201crelating to humanity.\u201d Later this month, that company is expected to make its debut on Wall Street in what could be one of the largest initial public offerings in history. But the move raises a fundamental question: Can a company put humanity first while also answering to Wall Street?\n <\/p>\n

\n The IPO is a monumental development for the AI boom and will put a spotlight on how investors feel about the maker of the Claude chatbot. The stock market debut also marks a new chapter for Anthropic that will test whether it can balance its mission of safely developing AI with the pressures of being a publicly traded company.\n <\/p>\n

\n Anthropic has a special ownership structure designed to help the company stick to its original goals, balance profit growth with its mission and keep investors from staging a takeover. The structure includes a group of trustees who have majority control of the board of directors, as well as a special class of shares that ensures the seven founders own a majority of the general shareholder voting power.\n <\/p>\n

\n With its mission for safe AI and its unorthodox corporate structure, Anthropic\u2019s Wall Street debut can be viewed as a guinea pig for AI frontier labs and how they are received by investors.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n Anthropic is registered as a public benefit corporation, or PBC. These types of companies are legally required to balance the interests of shareholders with the company\u2019s stated mission. It\u2019s different from a traditional company that focuses primarily on maximizing shareholder value.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe governance structure for Anthropic is very unique,\u201d said Gil Luria, head of technology research at financial services firm D.A. Davidson. \u201cThey spell it out. They\u2019re very upfront about it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Anthropic described its \u201ctripartite goals\u201d as a PBC in its S-1 filing: \u201cthe pecuniary interest of our stockholders, the best interest of those materially affected by our conduct and the Company Purpose.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Just a fraction of publicly traded companies are PBCs. Patagonia, which is privately held, and eyewear retailer Warby Parker (WRBY<\/a>) are both PBCs.\n <\/p>\n

\n PBCs can choose what they want to do with corporate profits and invest as much as they want in safety measures. And investors have little power to do anything about it. Anthropic rival OpenAI became a PBC in 2025.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAnthropic is explicit about that, that they believe that there will be instances where they choose not to maximize shareholder value because of the judgments that they make, the board and the leadership team,\u201d Luria said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cGrowing the company and enjoying profitability are part of the goal, so it\u2019s not that it\u2019s contrary to the goal,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s just that they\u2019re saying that there may be some cases where that is not the goal, or they seek other goals, even at the expense of growth and profitability.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Anthropic\u2019s seven founders collectively have 50.1% of the voting rights at the company, which means regular shareholders won\u2019t have any say in its operations. This is a variation of a trend in Big Tech companies in recent years that have had structures where the founders retain majority control, like Mark Zuckerberg at Meta and Elon Musk at SpaceX.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s not just that the founders have majority control. Anthropic in 2023 established the Long-Term Benefit Trust (LTBT), which is composed of five subject-matter experts who have no financial stake in the company\u2019s stock. However, they have special non-financial shares with the authority to appoint four directors to the seven-person company board.\n <\/p>\n

\n The LTBT members include Neil Buddy Shah, CEO at the Clinton Health Access Initiative; and Ben Bernanke, a former chair of the Federal Reserve. There is one vacancy in the LTBT that has yet to be filled.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe LTBT may have interests that differ from yours, and it may exercise its power in a way with which you disagree or in a way that may be adverse to your interests,\u201d Anthropic says in a filing with the SEC, referring to shareholders.\n <\/p>\n

\n When a company goes public, there can be more pressure to grow profits and deliver strong results for shareholders. But Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei have also talked about the risk of AI causing tremendous harm to humanity if placed in the wrong hands. Anthropic\u2019s IPO filing includes more than 90 pages of risk disclosures<\/a>, varying from how AI can be misused by bad actors to the possibility of existential risk to humanity.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhile this Long-Term Benefit Trust has a lot of power, the founders also have a lot of power. But, you know, in both cases, public shareholders don\u2019t have the power,\u201d said Jay Ritter, professor emeritus at the University of Florida and an expert in IPOs.\n <\/p>\n

\"Anthropic<\/p>\n

\n If there are growing concerns about AI, the founders and LTBT can make decisions for the company that impact the value of shares without any consideration for investors. In theory, it can help the company stick to its mission \u2014 but it remains to be seen how the structure will function until an event forces the company to act.\n <\/p>\n

\n Anthropic\u2019s ownership structure won\u2019t matter as much if profits are strong and it follows its mission of developing safe AI. But it will be stress-tested if earnings aren\u2019t as strong as expected, safety issues arise, or disagreements fester between the board, founders or trustees, Luria at D.A. Davidson said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe strangest aspect of Anthropic\u2019s filing is its corporate governance structure,\u201d Jay Goldberg, senior analyst at Seaport Research Partners, wrote in a note. \u201cWe believe this is the largest PBC and the full implications of this structure will take time to become apparent.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe believe this structure gives the LTBT and the founders effective permanent control of the company,\u201d Goldberg added.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2021, a group of employees at OpenAI left to start a new company focused on the safe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,61],"class_list":["post-956908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}