Anthropic commits 5% of its shares to a new Public Benefit Fund that grows with the company
Anthropic is placing 5% of its shares in a new Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, with the board able to add a further 2% for every 50% rise in the company’s value above a set baseline, subject to stockholder approval.
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Anthropic said on October 18 that it is committing part of its equity to a newly created Anthropic Public Benefit Fund. Subject to stockholder approval, 5% of the company’s shares will be committed immediately, with an additional 2% that the board may add at its discretion for every 50% increase in Anthropic’s value above a set baseline.
A stake that grows with the company
Anthropic operates as a public benefit corporation, and says most of its mission work happens inside the company: AI safety and interpretability research, applied biomedical research and discounted access to Claude for nonprofits and scientific institutions. The new fund is meant to offer “increased flexibility and scale,” for example through large donations to traditional nonprofits or direct distributions to specific populations.
The company framed the structure as a deliberate contrast with industry pay practices. “It is common practice for tech companies to offer escalating compensation awards to their executives. We are instead directing that equity to the public benefit,” the announcement said.
Labour-market impacts a focus
Anthropic singled out the labour market as one area the fund could address. AI may generate enormous economic value but could also cause instability for many workers, the company said. It has already committed $200 million to studying and addressing the issue, but “given the pace of AI progress, bolder approaches may be needed. The Fund will have the versatility to pursue them.”
The fund is being set up as a wholly owned LLC rather than a 501(c)(3) charity, to allow it to move between different forms of giving. Anthropic said none of the equity held by the LLC will be used for lobbying or political giving, in the US or abroad.
Roughly 20% of shares dedicated to the public good
The fund adds to earlier commitments. Anthropic’s co-founders pledged at the company’s founding to donate 80% of their equity, and the company runs an equity donation match programme in which about half of employees participate. Combined with the new fund, roughly 20% of Anthropic’s shares will be dedicated to the public good, plus any further share added if valuation milestones are reached.
Anthropic said it will share more on the fund’s structure and governance, including the valuation milestones, in the coming months, and will publish a public benefit report on its progress.
A question of trust
As TechCrunch noted, the announcement comes as the AI industry faces increasingly negative public sentiment, which CEO Dario Amodei has described as “fundamentally a crisis of trust.” It also comes as Anthropic prepares for an initial public offering expected in November that could value the company at up to $2 trillion, according to Reuters. At that scale, even a 5% stake would be worth a very large sum, putting the fund’s governance under close scrutiny.
Sources: Anthropic, TechCrunch, Reuters (via The Manila Times). Image: Anthropic.
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