Anthropic commits 5% of its shares to a fund that will make donations for the "public good".
Anthropic’s new fund starts with 5% of its shares, about $48B at the $965B valuation, and its board can add 2% for every 50% rise in value above a baseline the company hasn’t disclosed.
The escalation is modeled on the rising equity awards tech firms give executives, but here the extra stock goes to a fund that may make large nonprofit donations or direct distributions to specific populations.
Making the fund a wholly owned LLC rather than a 501(c)(3) charity lets Anthropic switch between forms of giving, while its equity can’t pay for lobbying or political donations anywhere.
Anthropic’s co-founders earlier pledged to give away 80% of their own shares, and about half of employees donate some of their shares through a matching program. Add it all up and about a fifth of the company is promised to public causes.
Why now. Anthropic plans to go public, possibly at around $2T, and the AI industry is facing anger over job losses, data centers and safety risks. A fund like this gives Anthropic a concrete answer to the question “what does the public get out of this?” before ordinary investors can buy in.