Who’s really in charge at Anthropic after the IPO?

Anthropic was founded in 2021 to ensure humanity can control AI and benefit from it in the long-term. As the frontier lab approaches its initial public offering, however, there’s one class of humanity that is being shut out of control: anyone who buys its stock on public markets.

Anthropic 成立于 2021 年，旨在确保人类能够长期控制人工智能并从中受益。然而，随着这家前沿实验室临近首次公开募股（IPO），有一类人类正被排除在控制权之外：任何在公开市场上购买其股票的人。

Complex structures that allow founders like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg to control their public companies without owning most of them are nothing new in Silicon Valley. But Anthropic’s obsession with AI safety has resulted in a truly baroque style of corporate governance that will leave common shareholders with little say over most major decisions at the AI company, including who sits on its board.

在硅谷，允许像埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）或马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）这样的创始人无需持有多数股份即可控制其上市公司的复杂结构并不新鲜。但 Anthropic 对人工智能安全的执着导致了一种极其繁琐的公司治理风格，这将使普通股东在人工智能公司的多数重大决策（包括谁进入董事会）上几乎没有发言权。

First, Anthropic is a public benefit company — a for-profit corporation legally allowed to weigh a public mission alongside profit — with the goal of promoting AI safety. That status protects the board’s ability to make decisions about AI safety that aren’t driven entirely by shareholder value without being sued by angry investors. Right now, the board is chaired by Anthropic president Daniela Amodei and includes CEO Dario Amodei (her brother), Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, former Microsoft and GM CFO Christopher Liddell, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan, and Spark Capital partner Yasmin Razavi. There is one vacancy on the board.

首先，Anthropic 是一家公益公司——这是一种法律允许在追求利润的同时权衡公共使命的营利性公司——其目标是促进人工智能安全。这种地位保护了董事会做出不完全由股东价值驱动的人工智能安全决策的能力，而不会被愤怒的投资者起诉。目前，董事会由 Anthropic 总裁 Daniela Amodei 主席领导，成员包括首席执行官 Dario Amodei（她的兄弟）、Netflix 联合创始人 Reed Hastings、前微软和通用汽车首席财务官 Christopher Liddell、诺华公司首席执行官 Vas Narasimhan 以及 Spark Capital 合伙人 Yasmin Razavi。董事会目前有一个空缺席位。

Second, Anthropic has allocated significant control of its board to a Long-Term Benefit Trust (LTBT), an independent panel meant to keep the company focused on mission to benefit humanity. The trust owns a class of stock that gives it the ability to elect and remove a majority of the company’s board, known as Class T directors. The LTBT is chaired by Neil Shah, a global health expert who was managing director at GiveWell, a nonprofit that ranks charities, and includes former Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke, national security expert Richard Fontaine, and Harvard physicist Christopher Stubbs. There is one vacancy on the LTBT right now. The existing members will themselves choose who fills it.

其次，Anthropic 将其董事会的大部分控制权分配给了长期利益信托（LTBT），这是一个旨在使公司专注于造福人类使命的独立小组。该信托持有一类股票，使其有权选举和罢免公司董事会的大多数成员，即 T 类董事。LTBT 由全球健康专家 Neil Shah 主席领导，他曾是慈善评估非营利组织 GiveWell 的董事总经理；成员包括前美联储主席本·伯南克（Ben Bernanke）、国家安全专家理查德·方丹（Richard Fontaine）和哈佛大学物理学家克里斯托弗·斯塔布斯（Christopher Stubbs）。LTBT 目前有一个空缺席位，现有成员将自行决定由谁填补。

Third, Anthropic’s seven founders also jointly own a special class of stock that gives a majority of them 50.1% of shareholder voting power, allowing them to elect three members of the board of directors. If, for whatever reason, there’s no majority among the founders, only then are their shares voted in proportion with holders of common stock. Finally, the board can put a check on the LTBT. When the LTBT nominates a “Specified” one of its four directors, or removes that director without cause (that is, without alleging misconduct), the board’s nominating committee can decline to approve the move and throw the decision to the company’s employees for a vote.

第三，Anthropic 的七位创始人还共同持有一类特殊股票，使他们中的多数人拥有 50.1% 的股东投票权，从而能够选举三名董事会成员。如果由于某种原因，创始人们无法达成多数共识，他们的股份才会按比例与普通股股东的股份一起投票。最后，董事会可以对 LTBT 进行制衡。当 LTBT 提名其四名董事中的一名“指定”董事，或无故（即未指控不当行为）罢免该董事时，董事会的提名委员会可以拒绝批准此举，并将决定权交给公司员工投票表决。