Anthropic’s elaborate plan to keep Wall Street at bay

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Anthropic’s planned IPO raises questions over whether it can maintain its safe and responsible AI priorities.

Anthropic 计划进行的首次公开募股（IPO）引发了人们的质疑：该公司能否在上市后继续保持其对人工智能安全与责任的优先考量。

Anthropic wants to have it both ways. With its impending IPO, it wants to tap the vast riches of the public markets and insists it doesn’t want to compromise its core mission of developing AI safely and for the benefit of humanity. But greater model capabilities bring greater risks, and shareholders eager for returns may have little patience for costly safety measures that slow products on their way to market.

Anthropic 试图两全其美。随着即将到来的 IPO，该公司既想利用公开市场的巨额财富，又坚持不愿妥协其安全开发人工智能并造福人类的核心使命。然而，更强大的模型能力带来了更大的风险，而渴望回报的股东可能对那些拖慢产品上市速度的昂贵安全措施缺乏耐心。

University of Pennsylvania law professor Elizabeth Pollman told The Verge that Anthropic has proposed going public with a “unique and complicated governance structure that has not been used before” and that has been “creatively designed for this founder-led and mission-driven company.”

宾夕法尼亚大学法学教授伊丽莎白·波尔曼（Elizabeth Pollman）告诉《The Verge》，Anthropic 提议以一种“前所未有的、独特且复杂的治理结构”上市，这种结构是“为这家由创始人领导且以使命为导向的公司量身定制的”。

Foremost, Anthropic is a public benefit corporation. Simply put, it is legally required to focus on more than just maximizing shareholder returns, balancing these with its stated social mission and the interests of stakeholders, such as employees and specific communities.

首先，Anthropic 是一家公益公司（Public Benefit Corporation）。简而言之，它在法律上有义务不仅仅关注股东回报的最大化，还要将其与既定的社会使命以及员工和特定社区等利益相关者的利益进行平衡。

Shareholders typically have considerable sway over who sits on the board, giving them a means to replace directors or push for changes if they are unhappy with how the company is being run. For example, if shareholders are unhappy at what they perceive as unnecessary delays to market for optional safety testing, they may remove directors and replace them with ones more aligned with their interests, such as making money and being less cautious.

股东通常对董事会成员的构成拥有相当大的影响力，如果他们对公司的经营方式不满，就有办法更换董事或推动变革。例如，如果股东对他们认为因可选的安全测试而导致的不必要的上市延迟感到不满，他们可能会罢免董事，并换上更符合其利益（如赚钱且不那么谨慎）的人选。

Under Anthropic’s proposed governance structure, ordinary shareholders won’t have much of a say over who is on the board at all. Instead, four of the board’s seven directors will be chosen by a special body called the long-term benefit trust, explains Jens Dammann, a professor in business and commercial law at the University of Texas School of Law. It is a highly unusual setup for a major technology company.

德克萨斯大学法学院商业与商法教授延斯·达曼（Jens Dammann）解释说，根据 Anthropic 提议的治理结构，普通股东对董事会成员几乎没有发言权。相反，董事会七名成员中的四名将由一个名为“长期利益信托”的特殊机构选出。对于一家大型科技公司来说，这是一种非常罕见的设置。

Ordinary shareholders technically have a say in the board’s three remaining seats. However, Anthropic has created another safeguard that keeps power firmly in the hands of its founders, called “Founder LLC,” which will control 50.1 percent of the voting power on shareholder matters.

普通股东在技术上对董事会剩余的三个席位拥有发言权。然而，Anthropic 创建了另一道保障措施，将权力牢牢掌握在创始人手中，即“创始人有限责任公司”（Founder LLC），它将控制股东事务中 50.1% 的投票权。

All in all, the arrangements would give Anthropic’s founders and the trust “tremendous power” over the company’s direction, shielding it from many of “the pressures associated with being a public company,” Dammann told The Verge.

达曼告诉《The Verge》，总而言之，这些安排将使 Anthropic 的创始人和信托机构对公司的发展方向拥有“巨大的权力”，使其免受许多“与上市公司身份相关的压力”。