Can AI safety and profit growth coexist? Anthropic is betting on it
By John Towfighi, CNN
(CNN) — In 2021, a group of employees at OpenAI left the company to start a new lab focused on safe development of artificial intelligence. Later this month, that lab, Anthropic, is expected to make its debut on Wall Street in what could be one of the largest initial public offerings in history.
The IPO is a monumental development for the AI boom and will put a spotlight on how investors feel about the maker of the Claude chatbot. The stock market debut also marks a new chapter for Anthropic that will test whether it can balance its mission of safely developing AI with the pressures of being a publicly traded company.
Anthropic has a unique ownership structure designed to help stick to its original goals and keep investors from staging a takeover. The structure includes a group of trustees who have majority control of the board of directors, as well as a special class of shares that ensures the seven founders own a majority of the general shareholder voting power.
With its mission for safe AI and its unorthodox corporate structure, Anthropic’s Wall Street debut can be viewed as a guinea pig for AI frontier labs and how they are received by investors.
Public benefit corporation
Anthropic is registered as a public benefit corporation, or PBC. These types of companies are legally required to balance the interests of shareholders with the company’s stated mission. It’s different than a traditional company that focuses primarily on maximizing shareholder value.
Anthropic described its “tripartite goals” as a PBC in its S-1 filing: “the pecuniary interest of our stockholders, the best interest of those materially affected by our conduct and the Company Purpose.”
Just a fraction of publicly traded companies are PBCs, noted Jay Ritter, professor emeritus at the University of Florida. Patagonia, which is privately held, and eyewear retailer Warby Parker (WRBY) are both PBCs.
PBCs can choose what they want to do with corporate profits and invest as much as they want in safety measures. And investors cannot do anything about it, Ritted noted. Anthropic rival OpenAI became a PBC in 2025.
Anthropic’s seven founders collectively have 50.1% of the voting rights at the company, which means regular shareholders won’t have any say in its operations. This is a variation of a trend in Big Tech companies in recent years that have had structures where the founders retain majority control, like Mark Zuckerberg at Meta and Elon Musk at SpaceX.
Long-Term Benefit Trust
It’s not just that the founders have majority control. Anthropic in 2023 established the Long-Term Benefit Trust (LTBT), which is composed of five subject-matter experts who have no financial stake in the company’s stock. However, they have special non-financial shares with the authority to appoint four directors to the seven-person company board.
The LTBT members include Neil Buddy Shah, CEO at the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and Ben Bernanke, the former chair of the Federal Reserve. There is one vacancy in the LTBT that has yet to be filled.
“The LTBT may have interests that differ from yours, and it may exercise its power in a way with which you disagree or in a way that may be adverse to your interests,” Anthropic says in a filing with the SEC, referring to shareholders.
Anthropic and CEO Dario Amodei have talked about the risk of AI causing tremendous harm to humanity if placed in the wrong hands. Anthropic’s IPO filing includes more than 90 pages of risk disclosures, varying from how AI can be misused by bad actors to the possibility of existential risk to humanity.
When a company goes public, there can be more pressure to grow profits and deliver strong results for shareholders — something financial analysts have been quick to note.
“Anthropic is explicit about that, that they believe that there will be instances where they choose not to maximize shareholder value because of the judgments that they make, the board and the leadership team,” said Gil Luria, head of technology research at financial services firm D.A. Davidson.
What does this mean?
Anthropic’s ownership structure won’t matter as much if profits are strong and it follows its mission of developing safe AI. But it will be stress-tested if earnings aren’t as strong as expected or disagreements arise between the board, founders or trustees, Luria said.
If there are growing concerns, the founders and LTBT can make decisions for the company that impact the value of shares without any consideration for investors. In theory, it can help the company stick to its mission — but it remains to be seen how the structure will function until an event forces the company to act.
“The strangest aspect of Anthropic’s filing is its corporate governance structure,” Jay Goldberg, senior analyst at Seaport Research Partners, wrote in a note. “We believe this is the largest PBC and the full implications of this structure will take time to become apparent.”
“We believe this structure gives the LTBT and the founders effective permanent control of the company,” Goldberg added.
The-CNN-Wire
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