Anthropic plans super-voting shares for CEO and co-founders ahead of IPO

Anthropic is taking a page from Silicon Valley’s oldest playbook. The AI company behind Claude is creating a new class of super-voting shares for CEO Dario Amodei and the rest of its founding team, a move designed to entrench their control before the company goes public. The restructuring, first reported by The Information and later confirmed by Bloomberg, comes as Anthropic prepares for an IPO that could land as early as September or October 2026. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are reportedly involved in the offering. A familiar power move with an unfamiliar twist Dual-class share structures are practically a rite of passage for tech founders heading to public markets. Mark Zuckerberg used one to keep Facebook under his thumb despite years of advertiser boycotts and congressional grilling. Snap’s Evan Spiegel went even further, issuing shares to the public with zero voting rights at all. What makes Anthropic’s version slightly more complicated is the company’s unusual corporate architecture. Anthropic is structured as a Public Benefit Corporation, which means its legal obligations extend beyond shareholders to include a broader social mission. It also operates a Long-...