411. The Raise

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company founded specifically because its founders were concerned about the safety risks of artificial intelligence, is planning to go public, Bloomberg reports. The IPO could happen as early as October. Anthropic would like to sell shares of itself to the public. The public will have the opportunity to buy them.

Anthropic was founded in 2021 by Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, and other researchers who had previously worked at OpenAI. They left OpenAI because of concerns about how quickly the field was moving and how little attention was being paid to the risks of that movement. The specific concern was that AI development was proceeding faster than the corresponding work to understand what could go wrong. Anthropic was founded to do the corresponding work. The company's stated mission is the responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity. The mission is on the website.

(The company has raised billions of dollars from investors including Amazon and Google. These are very large technology companies that have a financial interest in AI development proceeding quickly. They also have a financial interest in Anthropic specifically, which is developing AI. The investors' interest in safety is presumably aligned with their general interest in Anthropic succeeding. The alignment has been productive. The company now employs thousands of people and has deployed a model called Claude, which is used by millions. The IPO would extend this alignment to a broader category of investor.)

Public markets operate on a quarterly reporting cycle. Shareholders receive regular updates on revenue, growth, and profitability. They have expectations. When the expectations are not met, the share price declines. When the share price declines, there is pressure. The pressure is applied in various directions. The directions are generally toward growth. Growth in AI companies often involves deploying more AI to more people in more contexts faster.

Dario Amodei, who left his previous employer due to concerns about the speed of AI deployment, would become the chief executive of a public company whose shareholders will have an interest in the speed of AI deployment. This transition is described in the Bloomberg report as an IPO. It may also be described as a full-circle moment. The circle, in this case, is approximately five years in circumference.

The IPO is planned. The planning is underway. The shares will be offered. The offering is the part where the public gets to participate. The public has been participating in Anthropic's products as users. The IPO would allow the public to additionally participate as shareholders, which is a different category of participation with different incentive structures and reporting requirements.

The company founded to ensure AI development is careful and safe is preparing to do the thing that makes companies less careful and more focused on returns. The timing is described as "as early as October." October is the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter is when many technology companies choose to go public. The choice is made for market reasons. The market reasons are understood.