Anthropic’s $2 trillion IPO puts powerful external trustees in spotlight

Anthropic’s prospective public-market investors must reckon with an external group of trustees that control the majority of the AI company’s board, as its planned blockbuster initial public offering forces close scrutiny of its experimental governance structure.

Anthropic 的潜在公开市场投资者必须面对一个外部受托人小组，该小组控制着这家人工智能公司董事会的多数席位。随着该公司计划进行重磅首次公开募股（IPO），其试验性的治理结构正受到密切审视。

The company’s Long-Term Benefit Trust (LTBT) is a small group of advisers created to safeguard the lab’s mission of developing AI for the long-term benefit of humanity, even as commercial pressures intensify. The trust holds no equity in Anthropic, but has significant influence, with the San Francisco-based company planning to preserve its role after a stock market debut that could value the Claude maker at as much as $2 trillion.

该公司的“长期利益信托”（LTBT）是一个由顾问组成的小型团体，旨在捍卫实验室的使命，即在商业压力加剧的情况下，开发造福人类长期利益的人工智能。该信托在 Anthropic 不持有任何股权，但拥有重大影响力。这家总部位于旧金山的公司计划在上市后保留该信托的角色，而此次上市对这家 Claude 开发商的估值可能高达 2 万亿美元。

The LTBT, which is the controlling governance mechanism of the Anthropic public benefit corporation, has the right to appoint or dismiss the majority of the company’s board. It has selected four of Anthropic’s seven directors, including Netflix’s co-founder Reed Hastings and Vas Narasimhan, chief executive of Novartis.

LTBT 是 Anthropic 公益公司的核心治理机制，有权任命或罢免公司董事会的大多数成员。它已经选出了 Anthropic 七名董事中的四名，其中包括 Netflix 联合创始人里德·黑斯廷斯（Reed Hastings）和诺华公司（Novartis）首席执行官瓦斯·纳拉辛汉（Vas Narasimhan）。

Currently, the LTBT has three members out of a potential maximum of five, chaired by Neil Buddy Shah, chief executive of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, alongside former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke and Richard Fontaine, CEO of the Center for a New American Security. Mariano-Florentino “Tino” Cuéllar, a former California Supreme Court justice, left the trust after a few months to work as Anthropic’s chief global affairs officer.

目前，LTBT 在最多五名成员的编制中拥有三名成员，由克林顿健康倡议组织（Clinton Health Access Initiative）首席执行官尼尔·巴迪·沙阿（Neil Buddy Shah）担任主席，其他成员包括前美联储主席本·伯南克（Ben Bernanke）和新美国安全中心（Center for a New American Security）首席执行官理查德·方丹（Richard Fontaine）。前加州最高法院大法官马里亚诺-弗洛伦蒂诺·“蒂诺”·奎利亚尔（Mariano-Florentino “Tino” Cuéllar）在加入信托几个月后离职，转而担任 Anthropic 的首席全球事务官。

Anthropic is attempting to establish a template for future AI governance through the trust, said multiple people close to its plans. They said the ambition for the LTBT is to provide an industry blueprint, similar to the GAAP accounting principles, which initially emerged as voluntary standards proposed by private companies. Bernanke’s appointment in July signals this intention to build a more institutional body, one person added.

多位知情人士表示，Anthropic 正试图通过该信托为未来的人工智能治理建立模板。他们表示，LTBT 的目标是提供一份行业蓝图，类似于最初由私营公司提出并作为自愿标准的 GAAP 会计准则。一位知情人士补充说，伯南克在 7 月份的任命标志着其建立一个更具制度化机构的意图。

The trustees are required to receive advance notice of major company actions, including the launch of new AI models. They meet weekly among themselves, while also meeting Anthropic’s leadership as frequently as every other week, according to people close to the matter. They also attend regular company board meetings and hold discussions with Anthropic’s founders on significant issues. Those have included the company’s Mythos cybersecurity model, where trustees encouraged a limited rollout through the Glasswing Project, as well as its dispute with the US government over automated weapons, said a person close to the talks.

受托人有权提前获知公司的重大行动，包括新人工智能模型的发布。据知情人士透露，他们每周举行内部会议，并每两周与 Anthropic 的领导层会面一次。他们还参加定期的公司董事会会议，并就重大问题与 Anthropic 的创始人进行讨论。一位接近谈判的人士表示，这些议题包括公司的 Mythos 网络安全模型（受托人鼓励通过 Glasswing 项目进行有限发布），以及公司与美国政府在自动化武器方面的争议。

Yet despite that access and authority, the trust has operated largely in an advisory capacity. It has not attempted to draw red lines or force a significant trade-off between profit and purpose, said another person familiar with its workings—meaning the structure has yet to face the kind of conflict that would show whether it can constrain Anthropic’s leadership when commercial and societal goals diverge.

然而，尽管拥有这些权限和权威，该信托在很大程度上仍以咨询身份运作。另一位熟悉其运作的人士表示，它尚未试图划定红线或强迫在利润与使命之间做出重大权衡——这意味着该结构尚未面临那种能够证明其在商业目标与社会目标发生分歧时，能否约束 Anthropic 领导层的冲突。

That structure creates a “built-in conflict,” according to Jesse Fried, professor at Harvard Law School and a corporate governance expert. The company “raises funds from profit-seeking investors, then lets self-appointed individuals decide how much profit to sacrifice for the firm’s mission—ensuring its AI benefits humanity”, he wrote in a recent paper highlighting the risks of the governance models at Anthropic and OpenAI. “A deep and potentially unmanageable tension is thus hard-wired into the firms’ corporate DNA.”

哈佛法学院教授、公司治理专家杰西·弗里德（Jesse Fried）认为，这种结构造成了“内在冲突”。他在最近一篇强调 Anthropic 和 OpenAI 治理模型风险的论文中写道，该公司“从追求利润的投资者那里筹集资金，然后让自选的个人决定为了公司的使命——确保其人工智能造福人类——牺牲多少利润”。“因此，一种深刻且可能无法管理的紧张关系被植入了这些公司的企业基因中。”

Experts warn that while Anthropic’s trust is structured thoughtfully, it remains an unproven model that will need to be stress-tested as the lossmaking company moves toward becoming a sustainable business over the long term. “It’s nearly impossible to perfectly contract for all possible circumstances that could arise when managing competing interests within a firm,” said Elizabeth Pollman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in corporate governance. She pointed to the intense competition in AI at the geopolitical and corporate levels as factors that make the balancing act even more difficult. “Will this governance structure work in the way intended, serving dual or more interests over time? That’s the real challenge,” she said.

专家警告称，尽管 Anthropic 的信托结构设计周密，但它仍是一个未经证实的模型。随着这家亏损公司向长期可持续业务转型，该模型将需要接受压力测试。宾夕法尼亚大学法学教授、公司治理专家伊丽莎白·波尔曼（Elizabeth Pollman）表示：“在管理公司内部相互竞争的利益时，几乎不可能完美地为所有可能出现的情况制定合同。”她指出，地缘政治和企业层面人工智能领域的激烈竞争，使得这种平衡行为变得更加困难。“这种治理结构能否按预期运作，长期服务于双重或多重利益？这才是真正的挑战，”她说。

In recent years, there has been a broader trend in Silicon Valley of tech companies diverging from conventional governance norms, making it harder for shareholders and the public to hold them to account. Anthropic and OpenAI, the two major AI labs, have both designed unusual company structures, with self-appointed “guardians” of their mission rather than just traditional board directors with fiduciary duties.

近年来，硅谷出现了一种更广泛的趋势，即科技公司偏离传统的治理规范，这使得股东和公众更难对其进行问责。Anthropic 和 OpenAI 这两家主要的人工智能实验室都设计了不同寻常的公司结构，由自选的使命“守护者”而非仅仅是负有信托责任的传统董事会成员来管理。

OpenAI, which was founded as a nonprofit, became a cautionary tale in November 2023, when its board tried to fire its chief executive Sam Altman but lost the confidence of the company’s investors and employees. The incident led to most of the board members being replaced and a broader restructuring of the startup.

以非营利组织身份成立的 OpenAI 在 2023 年 11 月成为了一个警示案例，当时其董事会试图解雇首席执行官萨姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman），但失去了公司投资者和员工的信任。这一事件导致大多数董事会成员被更换，并引发了该初创公司更大范围的重组。

Anthropic’s trust is seen as less risky than OpenAI’s governance because it has a built-in “kill switch” that allows the trustees to be fired with the support of 85 percent of the shareholders’ voting power, a supermajority that could change when the company goes public, according to a person with knowledge of its structure. A person close to Anthropic said the private investors who have backed the company across multiple rounds did so with full understanding of its governance structure, and several specifically cited its emphasis on safety as part of their investment thesis.

据一位了解其结构的人士称，Anthropic 的信托被认为比 OpenAI 的治理风险更小，因为它内置了一个“终止开关”，允许在 85% 的股东投票权支持下解雇受托人。这一超级多数比例在公司上市时可能会发生变化。一位接近 Anthropic 的人士表示，在多轮融资中支持该公司的私人投资者是在充分了解其治理结构的情况下进行投资的，其中几位投资者明确提到，对安全性的重视是他们投资逻辑的一部分。

However, early investors also assumed the company would have to become a commercial juggernaut in order to fulfill its core mission, said one venture capitalist who has backed Anthropic. “There was a judgment made by investors that capitalism would win in the end. Whatever you say, if you need a lot of money for comput

然而，一位支持 Anthropic 的风险投资家表示，早期投资者也认为，该公司必须成为商业巨头才能实现其核心使命。“投资者做出的判断是，资本主义最终会获胜。无论你怎么说，如果你需要大量的资金用于计算……”