IPO: Meet the five Anthropic co-founders who own more shares than CEO Dario Amodei as the AI firm prepares for its offer
Anthropic PBC, the artificial intelligence (AI) firm, filed its S-1 paperwork on Monday (local time) as it eyes one of the biggest initial public offerings (IPOs) in history.
In a Wall Street debut that could value the company at up to $2 trillion, its seven co-founders, who left rival OpenAI to create Anthropic in 2021 following disagreements with OpenAI executives over how AI should be built, could become the latest tech billionaires.
Five of Anthropic’s seven co-founders hold more shares than Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dario Amodei, according to the company’s S-1 filing.
Quick answers to key questions
•5 QUESTIONS
1
Which five Anthropic co-founders own more shares than CEO Dario Amodei?⌵They are Tom Brown, Christopher Olah, Jared Kaplan, Jack Clark and Daniela Amodei.
2
How many Anthropic shares does each of the five co-founders own?⌵Tom Brown holds about 244 million shares, Christopher Olah 242.9 million, Jared Kaplan 242.4 million, Jack Clark 242.3 million and Daniela Amodei 241.4 million.
3
Which Anthropic co-founder has the largest disclosed shareholding?⌵Tom Brown has the largest disclosed stake among the co-founders, with roughly 244 million shares. He is Anthropic’s chief compute officer and oversees computing infrastructure used to train AI models.
4
Does Daniela Amodei own more Anthropic shares than Dario Amodei?⌵Yes. Daniela holds about 241.4 million shares, compared with Dario’s roughly 240.6 million—about 800,000 fewer shares for Dario.
5
Can the exact value of the five co-founders’ Anthropic shares be determined before the IPO?⌵No. The filing had not disclosed the expected IPO price or how many shares Anthropic planned to sell, making the exact value of their holdings difficult to calculate.
1. Tom Brown: Brown, 39, is Anthropic’s chief compute officer and holds the largest number of shares among the co-founders, at roughly 244 million. He oversees the company’s computing infrastructure used to train AI models.
He grew up in San Francisco and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied computer science and cognitive science. Before co-founding Anthropic in 2021, he worked at and founded several startups. His career has included roles as a founding engineer at MoPub, co-founder and CTO at Grouper, and a member of the technical staff at OpenAI in 2016 and later at Google DeepMind.
He rejoined OpenAI in 2018 as its research engineering lead before leaving in 2021 to co-found Anthropic. Brown was among OpenAI’s first 20 employees.
2. Christopher Olah: A co-founder and member of the technical staff at Anthropic, Olah holds the second-largest disclosed stake in the soon-to-be-public company. He has some 242.9 million shares. According to his website, 34-year-old Olah works on reverse-engineering artificial neural networks into human-understandable algorithms. According to The New York Times, he grew up in Toronto, Canada, and attended the private Abelard School. At 19, he was selected as a Thiel Foundation fellow and received $100,000 to launch independent machine-learning and neural-network research. Before Anthropic, he worked as a developer at the Department of Forestry at the University of Toronto. He then worked as a developer at the Adaptation and Impacts Research Division of Environment Canada. He also worked for three years at Google Brain before joining OpenAI in 2018 as a member of the technical staff.
3. Jared Kaplan: Kaplan, who owns 242.4 million shares of the AI firm, is a co-founder and chief science officer. The 42-year-old Kaplan helped develop the company's method of training models to align with a set of written policies and principles, called “constitutional AI”. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Stanford University and a PhD in physics from Harvard University. He also attended the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy outside Chicago. Between 2009 and 2013, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, after which he joined OpenAI as a research consultant. Kaplan has also been a professor at Johns Hopkins University since 2012.
4. Jack Clark: The 38-year-old Clark owns the fourth-largest number of Anthropic shares, at 242.3 million. He was head of policy at the AI firm before moving into a new role as head of public benefit in March this year. Clark grew up in Brighton, England, and attended Varndean School, Varndean College and then the University of East Anglia, where he studied English literature and wrote for the student newspaper. Before moving into the tech space, he worked as a technology journalist. He worked as a reporter at Adfero, after which he joined CBS Interactive (UK) in the same role. He then wrote for The Register and Bloomberg. During his stint as a journalist, Clark met Amodei at a conference in 2015. In 2016, he joined OpenAI, first as part of its strategy and communications team, and later became its policy director.
5. Daniela Amodei: Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, Dario Amodei’s younger sister, owns more shares than her sibling, holding 241.4 million shares compared with the CEO’s roughly 240.6 million shares. Amodei grew up in San Francisco’s Mission District. Her father was a leather craftsman, while her mother managed renovation projects for libraries in San Francisco and Berkeley. The Amodei siblings attended Lowell High School in San Francisco. The 39-year-old Daniela manages the company's business operations and executive leadership. She attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned a degree in English literature and graduated summa cum laude. She began working in business development at the IRIS Center at the University of Maryland. She then worked as a fellow at Conservation Through Public Health in Uganda and later as a deputy field director for Matt Cartwright for Congress. She later joined the US House of Representatives. She joined OpenAI as an engineering manager and VP of People in 2018.
As Anthropic heads towards its Wall Street debut, the S-1 filing offers a closer look at the five co-founders whose stakes exceed those of CEO Dario Amodei.
Swati Gandhi is a digital journalist with over four years of experience, specialising in international and geopolitical issues. Her work focuses on foreign policy, global power shifts, and the political and economic forces shaping international relations, with a particular emphasis on how global developments affect India. She approaches journalism with a strong belief in context-driven reporting, aiming to break down complex global events into clear, accessible narratives for a wide readership.<br><br> Previously, Swati has worked at Business Standard, where she covered a range of beats including national affairs, politics, and business. This diverse newsroom experience helped her build a strong grounding in reporting, while also strengthening her ability to work across both breaking news and in-depth explanatory stories. Covering multiple beats early in her career has helped her be informed about her current work, allowing her to connect domestic developments with wider international trends.<br><br> At Live Mint, she focuses on international and geopolitical issues through a business and economic lens, examining how global political developments, foreign policy decisions, and power shifts impact markets, industries, and India’s strategic and economic interests.<br><br> She holds a Bachelor’s degree in English (Honours) from the University of Delhi and a Master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University. Her academic training has shaped her emphasis on precision, analytical rigour, and clarity in writing. Her interests include global political economy and the intersection of geopolitics with business.<br><br> Outside work, Swati focuses on exploring her passion and love for food. From fancy cafes to street spots, Swati explores food like a true foodie.
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