Anthropic asks job candidates if they’d tank their own stock to zero

Imagine sitting in a job interview and being asked whether you’d support a decision that could send your future employer’s stock price to zero. At Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, that’s not a hypothetical nightmare. It’s part of the hiring process. The AI company has built a dedicated “culture interview” into its recruitment pipeline that probes candidates on whether they’d prioritize the company’s safety mission over personal financial gain. The questions get specific: would you support abandoning AI developments entirely if safety concerns demanded it, even if doing so destroyed the company’s valuation? The loyalty test with real stakes The culture interview isn’t run by HR or a hiring manager reading from a script. Instead, Anthropic designates specific employees to conduct these conversations, which center on ethical dilemmas and personal values rather than technical chops. Candidates face questions designed to surface their true motivations for joining. Are they drawn to Anthropic’s stated mission of building safe AI? Or are they showing up because the compensation packages are generous and the company’s trajectory looks like a rocket ship? CEO Dario Amodei ...