Anthropic Wants an IPO. New York City Wants It to Slow Down – Moby THE GIST
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Anthropic boasted to investors that third-quarter revenue grew 46%, hitting $16.8 billion. The next day, CEO Dario Amodei got a letter from New York City Comptroller Mark Levine asking him to hit pause on the IPO ambitions and address the safety and governance concerns first.
WHAT HAPPENED
In October 2024, Amodei published an essay titled “Machines of Loving Grace,” in which he envisioned the good AI could do. “I think that most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be, just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be,” he wrote.
Now the watchdogs are asking him to fact-check himself and review his stance on the risks part. Levine urged a pause until Anthropic fully addresses the safety, governance, and development-pace concerns it raised itself.
“Instead of proceeding headlong with its IPO, the company should focus its energies on addressing these unprecedented risks,” Levine wrote. He asked for a written reply from the company.
WHY IT MATTERS
NYC’s public pension funds have a combined $7 million in exposure to Anthropic through private equity holdings. The exposure is small (they have over $325 billion in assets), but the symbolism is not.
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Any exposure to a murky, risky, and unpredictable business is a liability. Especially the safety and governance hazards already enumerated. And it’s not just New York City: the FTC sent civil investigative demands to Anthropic and OpenAI on Wednesday too. Each runs more than 50 pages and covers security incidents, safeguarding practices, marketing materials and privacy policies. The agency might also have the top executives testify. The same day, a group of state attorneys general sued OpenAI under consumer protection laws. OpenAI said it will engage constructively.
As these frontier labs outpace AI development beyond what any society can comprehend or catch in time, the authorities responsible for the oversight are buckling up and paying attention.
Their financial exposure is a nonsignificant factor. A fiduciary like the New York City Comptroller’s office, which oversees $325 billion, is putting governance questions in writing before the prospectus is public. Levine references Amodei’s essay that called for a slower development among frontier labs.
WHAT’S NEXT
Anthropic plans to go public in November, so its written response would need to be prompt. And whether it answers this call publicly will show how the company handles institutional and regulatory pushback. As for executive testimonies, those will be public and a treat to watch.