Anthropic’s co-founders are aiming to retain decision-making power even after the company goes public. They’re asking shareholders to approve a structure that would grant the seven founders—including CEO Dario Amodei—special voting shares carrying 50.1% of the vote on most corporate matters, contingent on at least three founders maintaining a minimum ownership stake. The plan is expected to be presented in the coming days.
This isn’t unprecedented—companies like Meta and Snap have used super-voting shares to let founders maintain control. What’s different here is the shared approach among a group of seven. Each founder currently holds about 2% of the company, including Amodei, who earlier this year pledged to give away 80% of his wealth while warning that concentrated AI-generated wealth could destabilize society. Under this proposal, the special shares wouldn’t carry extra economic value—they’d merely preserve governance influence once any IPO goes through.
Board Structure, Trusts, and Employee Roles
Alongside the voting power shift, the governance structure would be updated in several ways. The Long-Term Benefit Trust—Anthropic’s commitment-aligned governance vehicle—would continue to select most of the board. The co-founders’ direct board seats would increase from two to three, and employee stakeholders would receive shares designed to help break ties in certain scenarios.
Valuation and IPO Backdrop
Anthropic, founded five years ago, was valued at about $96.5 billion this past May. More recently, secondary market activity has pushed that figure up to $1.5 trillion in expectations tied to the pending IPO. The upcoming public offering is widely anticipated to reflect this higher valuation.
Preserving voting control through super-voting shares isn’t rare in tech IPOs—it’s a common tool used to ensure that founders retain direction of strategy, even as capital opens up to external investors. In Anthropic’s case, the group form of concentrated voting rights alongside governance via a benefit trust aims to strike a balance between founder influence, stakeholder oversight, and public accountability.
What this means: The proposal, if approved, would allow the founders to steer Anthropic’s core decisions long after the IPO—impacting major strategic directions like AI safety, product development, and partnership agreements. It signals confidence in their long-term vision, but also raises questions about how responsive the company will be to external shareholders. As the IPO approaches, the structure suggests that Anthropic is prioritizing control as much as capital—and that’s a trend we’ll be watching closely across the AI industry.”
