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Anthropic Speeds Toward the Public Markets
Anthropic, the closely watched AI startup behind the Claude models, is accelerating toward the capital markets. According to an unpublished draft IPO prospectus obtained by Reuters, Anthropic plans to list as early as this fall. Its market value could reportedly top a striking 2 trillion dollars.
The document also discloses executive pay for the first time. CEO Dario Amodei received total compensation of 18 million dollars last year, in 2025.
Low Base Salary, Heavy on Stock and Options
According to the prospectus, most of Amodei’s 18 million dollars came from stock and options. In fact, only this July did Dario Amodei and his sister Daniela Amodei, Anthropic’s president, double their fixed annual salaries to 1.4 million dollars. Daniela Amodei’s total pay last year was 16.4 million dollars.
To keep the leadership team stable, Anthropic’s board has pledged to grant the siblings more shares this year as restricted stock units (RSUs). Some of these shares will vest only if they stay with the company and if it reaches its listing milestone.
How Amodei’s Pay Compares
Next to other tech CEOs, Amodei’s pay falls in the industry’s typical range. Compared with the 627.5 million dollars of Oracle co-CEO Clayton Magouyrk, it looks modest.
On headline pay alone, however, he earns more than Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, at 10.9 million dollars, much of it for personal security. He also tops Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, at 2.1 million dollars.
Why Founders Need Less Cash
Courtney Yu, research director at the pay data firm Equilar, highlighted a key point. In her view, founders usually do not need high annual cash pay, because the equity they hold already makes them wealthy.
Under the SEC’s “compensation actually paid” standard, which counts changes in the value of unvested stock, the picture shifts. Pichai’s realized pay would jump to 213.9 million dollars, and Jassy’s to 13.2 million dollars.
An 80% Pledge, and a Sharp Jab From Yann LeCun
The founders’ wealth is set to soar with the IPO. Yet the prospectus does not list their exact ownership stakes. Instead, it stresses that seven co-founders, including Dario Amodei, have pledged to donate 80% of their Anthropic shares to charity.
Still, controversy around Anthropic and Amodei has never faded. Former Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun recently criticized Amodei in an interview. He called some of Amodei’s views on AI progress and risk “deluded.”
As its listing draws near, this safety-first AI company will face strict scrutiny from both capital markets and technical rivals.
The Growing Pains of Financial Transparency
Anthropic is pursuing an IPO now with a valuation above 2 trillion dollars. That choice shows how vast the cost of training frontier models has become. Even backers on the scale of Amazon and Google struggle to fund it through private rounds alone.
The leaked prospectus also lifts the veil on the low-key, academic, nonprofit-like image Anthropic has long kept. In Wall Street’s eyes, neither the 18-million-dollar CEO pay nor the 80% donation pledge, seen by some as a public relations move, changes the core reality. Once the opening bell rings, Anthropic must compete with OpenAI and Google under the same business rules.
What Investors Will Really Watch
Investors care less about how much the founders give away. Instead, they want to know whether Claude can generate steady cash flow under the weight of a 2-trillion-dollar valuation. That cash flow must cover enormous compute costs.
Before the formal listing, debate over Anthropic’s technical moat and the fairness of its valuation will likely grow fiercer, much like LeCun’s criticism.
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