Anthropic IPO: Founders Retain Control, No Board Seats

Anthropic is preparing a new stock structure for its upcoming IPO, giving CEO Dario Amodei and six co-founders enhanced voting rights. This means public shareholders will have little influence over company decisions. The plan, confirmed by Reuters and Bloomberg, grants super-voting power to the founders. This is significant because the company's Long-Term Benefit Trust, which elects most board members, recently decreased from four to three trustees. The current trustees are Neil Buddy Shah, Richard Fontaine, and Ben Bernanke. CEO Dario Amodei holds only about 2% of the company's equity. This new dual-class structure aims to give founders voting power despite their smaller equity stake. While common in tech companies like Meta and SpaceX, the Council of Institutional Investors argues against such structures, saying they reduce accountability to economic owners. The specific vote ratio for founder shares is not yet public, and the structure could still change. This setup means public investors will be buying shares with almost no ability to influence the company's direction.