Anthropic: After the IPO, Who Controls the Company? - Morningstar
By Google News AI ·
When Anthropic sells stock to the public later this month, it will debut with an unusual, highly complex share class structure. The company will give most outside shareholders a stake in the business, but little say in its governance.
Anthropic’s share class structure creates little overlap between voting rights and ownership. Control sits mainly with two groups that hold little to no share of the company’s overall economics.
The first group in this “control layer” is the Long-Term Benefit Trust, a five-seat independent group of trustees (separate from the board of directors) who hold no Anthropic equity and take no share of the profits. Trustees bring expertise in fields such as security, economics, health, and science, where AI could have profound effects. The LTBT together holds a single Class T share, which allows it to elect four of Anthropic’s seven directors and remove them without cause.
The second controlling group, the “Founder LLC,” comprises Anthropic’s seven cofounders. Together they hold a single Class F share. They can appoint the remaining three board directors. Through its Class F share, Founder LLC carries votes equal to 50.1% of the total on every general matter. Each founder has one vote inside the LLC, and a simple majority decides how the share is cast. Put another way, four of seven cofounders can effectively determine the vote on any matter that would typically need a shareholder vote. Therefore, while the remaining three directors are elected by Class A and Class F shareholders, the founders retain effective control of any vote.
While this structure may appear dubious at first, it serves a purpose. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation whose stated aim is “the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term…
Originally published by Google News AI
