Anthropic希望两者兼有。 并坚持不想损害其安全开发AI的核心使命，但是，更大的模型能力带来更大的风险，渴望回报的股东可能对于昂贵的安全措施缺乏耐心，因为这些措施使产品在进入市场的路上放慢。
Anthropic将华尔街封锁的精心计划
Anthropic计划IPO 融资质疑能否保持安全而负责的AI优先。
Anthropic的Archrival的首席执行官萨姆·阿尔特曼(Sam Altman)将投资者的压力作为公司今年不追求IPO的原因之一。 Anthropic希望它能够以令人发指的治理结构抵御投资者的压力。
“一个独特和复杂的治理结构
宾夕法尼亚大学法律教授Elizabeth Pollman告诉The Verge说，Anthropic提议以“以前从未使用过的独特而复杂的治理结构”公开，并且“为这个由创始人领导和使命驱动的公司创造性地设计了这种结构”。 Anthropic应该有追求利润的自由，但即使是最强的法律保护也只能走这么远，任何公司结构，无论设计如何完善，都不能完全使一个公有公司脱离市场的需求。
Anthropic是一家公益公司。 简言之，法律要求它不仅注重股东收益最大化，而且要兼顾股东的社会使命和利益攸关方的利益，如雇员和特定社区的利益。 巴塔哥尼亚和Kickstarter是较为知名的例子之一，任务分别以环境保护和支持创意社区为中心。
另一个关键保障措施是保护Anthropic的使命，将股东的影响力限制在公司权力的最大杠杆之一：公司董事会。 董事监督公司并任命其领导，包括首席执行官。 董事也可以担任执行职务，例如Anthropic,CEODario Amodei和总裁Daniela Amodei都担任董事。
股东通常对谁在董事会任职有相当大的影响，如果他们对公司的运作方式不满意，就给予他们更换董事或推动变革的手段。 例如，如果股东不满意他们认为不必要地拖延市场进行可选安全测试，他们可能会罢免董事，代之以与其利益更一致的董事，例如赚钱和不太谨慎。
“Anthropic完全不受追求利润的压力，因为普通股东没有能力选择董事会或作出商业决定。”
Anthropic提议管理架构，相反，董事会的七位董事中有四位将由一个名为长期利益信托的特别机构挑选，这解释了德克萨斯大学法学院商业和商业法教授Jens Dammann。 对一家大型技术公司来说，这是非常不寻常的设置。
该信托基金由“五个在经济上没有利益的投票受托人”组成，他们拥有“AI安全、国家安全、公共政策和社会企业”方面的专门知识。 通过一种称为T类股票的特殊股票类别，受托人可以任命或撤换董事，以追求他们宣称的目的：确保“Anthropic负责地平衡股东的经济利益与受Anthropic行为和我们的公益目的影响者的利益。” 该信托旨在独立于公司的商业压力运作，理论上允许其将Anthropic的任务放在首位。
普通股东在技术上对董事会剩下的三个席位有发言权。 然而，Anthropic创立了另一种保障措施，将权力牢牢掌握在创始人手中，称为“Founder LLC”，它将控制50.1%的股东事务表决权。 鉴于许多股东的选票是由简单多数决定的，创立者有限责任公司基本上赋予Anthropic的创始人通过决定阻挠或强制的能力，无论其他股东如何投票。 这意味着他们会有效地选择剩下的三位导演，哥伦比亚法学院教授多萝西·隆德告诉了The Verge.
称创始人LLC将“最初”为Anthropic创始人中的7人：达里奥·阿莫代、达尼埃拉·阿莫代、汤姆·布朗、杰克·克拉克、贾里德·卡普兰、萨姆·麦坎德里什和克里斯托弗·奥拉赫。 “我们的七个共同创始人最初将是唯一的成员。” 特别是另一位联合创始人本·曼(Ben Mann)缺席，据旧金山标准报告，他共同领导了公司的实验Anthropic实验室。
总而言之，这些安排将使Anthropic的创始人和对公司方向的信任 " 强大力量 "，使其免受许多 " 与成为公营公司有关的压力 "。 “鉴于Anthropic选择了不寻常的治理结构，我看不出公开本身会如何削弱其将安全置于商业利益之上的能力。
科罗拉多大学法学院教授安·利普顿(Ann Lipton)同意，他告诉The Verge，从法律上讲，“Anthropic完全没有追求利润的压力，因为普通股东没有能力选择董事会或作出商业决定。” 但利普顿告诫说，创始人自己在公司中拥有财务利益，这可能会影响他们的决定。
“只要事情顺利，投资者可能不会介意他们缺乏发言权。 但是，如果事情变糟，他们可能会变得相当沮丧。”
而法律保护和不受市场压力的豁免之间有很大区别。 Anthropic与所有AI公司一样，“非常需要资本”,Lipton 称。 除非Anthropic利用利润创造比竞争者更快的机会，否则它将无法为其业务提供资金。 隆德表达了类似的关切。 Anthropic仍将“需要保持其投资者的优雅，”她补充说，“竞争压力和资本需求会随着时间的推移削弱安全承诺。 Anthropic没有回应The Verge关于它是否觉得公司实际上可以抵制股东的压力，以安全为代价大规模加速AI的评论请求。
Anthropic创始人开始离开，在其前景图中，称公司的成功“在很大程度上取决于”其高级团队，特别是其创始人的持续服务。 Dario和Daniela被指对推进公司的研究和任务特别 " 关键 "。 但是，除了失去领导之外，他们的离开还可能引发公司结构的重大变化，有可能使阻止Anthropic在安全上追求利润的一些保障措施被剥离。
根据拟议的结构，创始人有限责任公司如果大多数成员离开或集团选择解散，将“日落”。 一旦发生这种情况，普通股东可能获得削弱信托保护的权力，即使违背受托人的意愿，并且没有拥有不同类别股票的创始人或雇员的支持，达曼告诉了The Verge. 他解释说，还存在其他颠覆信托的手段，包括公共股东、雇员股东和创始人协调行动。
目前看来，Anthropic可能可以同时拥有。 但是，旨在维护其对AI安全的承诺的保护远非铁板球，很大程度上取决于市场压力，无论是其创始人坚持与否，还是信托的方向。 Dammann 称认为Anthropic的使命和投资者的要求之间 " 根本的两难处境无法完全令人满意地解决 "。 只要事情进展顺利，这种紧张关系就可能得到控制。 Dammann 称：“只要进展顺利，投资者可能不会介意他们缺乏发言权。” 如果事情变糟了，他们或许感到沮丧。
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Anthropic wants to have it both ways. With its impending IPO, it wants to tap the vast riches of the public markets and insists it doesn’t want to compromise its core mission of developing AI safely and for the benefit of humanity. But greater model capabilities bring greater risks, and shareholders eager for returns may have little patience for costly safety measures that slow products on their way to market.
Anthropic’s elaborate plan to keep Wall Street at bay
Anthropic’s planned IPO raises questions over whether it can maintain its safe and responsible AI priorities.
Sam Altman, the CEO of Anthropic’s archrival, OpenAI, has cited investor pressures as one reason the company is not pursuing an IPO this year. Anthropic hopes it can resist investor pressures with a mind-boggling governance structure.
A “unique and complicated governance structure that has not been used before…creatively designed for this founder-led and mission-driven company.”
University of Pennsylvania law professor Elizabeth Pollman told The Verge that Anthropic has proposed going public with a “unique and complicated governance structure that has not been used before” and that has been “creatively designed for this founder-led and mission-driven company.” Experts say it should give Anthropic freedom to pursue profits without letting shareholders force it to cut corners on safety or rush systems out before they’re adequately tested. But even the strongest legal protections can only go so far, and no corporate structure, no matter how well designed, can completely insulate a public company from the demands of the market.
Foremost, Anthropic is a public benefit corporation. Simply put, it is legally required to focus on more than just maximizing shareholder returns, balancing these with its stated social mission and the interests of stakeholders, such as employees and specific communities. Patagonia and Kickstarter are among the better-known examples, with missions centered on environmental conservation and supporting creative communities, respectively.
Another key safeguard aims to protect Anthropic’s mission by limiting shareholder influence over one of the biggest levers of corporate power: the company’s board of directors. Directors oversee the company and appoint its leadership, including the CEO. Directors can also hold executive roles, as is the case with Anthropic, with CEO Dario Amodei and president Daniela Amodei both sitting on the board.
Shareholders typically have considerable sway over who sits on the board, giving them a means to replace directors or push for changes if they are unhappy with how the company is being run. For example, if shareholders are unhappy at what they perceive as unnecessary delays to market for optional safety testing, they may remove directors and replace them with ones more aligned with their interests, such as making money and being less cautious.
“Anthropic is entirely insulated from profit seeking pressures, in the sense that ordinary shareholders have no ability to select the board or make business decisions.”
Under Anthropic’s proposed governance structure, ordinary shareholders won’t have much of a say over who is on the board at all. Instead, four of the board’s seven directors will be chosen by a special body called the long-term benefit trust, explains Jens Dammann, a professor in business and commercial law at the University of Texas School of Law. It is a highly unusual setup for a major technology company.
The trust is made up of “five financially disinterested voting trustees” with expertise in “AI safety, national security, public policy, and social enterprise.” Through a special class of share called Class T stock, the trustees can appoint or remove directors in pursuit of their stated purpose: ensuring “that Anthropic responsibly balances the financial interests of stockholders with the interests of those affected by Anthropic’s conduct and our public benefit purpose.” The trust is designed to operate independently of the company’s commercial pressures, allowing it, in theory, to put Anthropic’s mission first.
Ordinary shareholders technically have a say in the board’s three remaining seats. However, Anthropic has created another safeguard that keeps power firmly in the hands of its founders, called “Founder LLC,” which will control 50.1 percent of the voting power on shareholder matters. Given that many shareholder votes are decided by a simple majority, Founder LLC basically gives Anthropic’s founders the ability to block or force through decisions, regardless of how other shareholders vote. This means that they will effectively choose the remaining three directors, Columbia Law School professor Dorothy Lund told The Verge.
The prospectus says Founder LLC will “initially” be seven of Anthropic’s founders: Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei, Tom Brown, Jack Clark, Jared Kaplan, Sam McCandlish, and Christopher Olah. “Our seven co-founders will initially be the sole members.” Notably absent is another cofounder, Ben Mann, who co-leads the company’s experimental Anthropic Labs arm, as reported by The San Francisco Standard.
All in all, the arrangements would give Anthropic’s founders and the trust “tremendous power” over the company’s direction, shielding it from many of “the pressures associated with being a public company,” Dammann told The Verge. “Given the unusual governance structure Anthropic has chosen, I don’t see how going public, by itself, would undermine its ability to prioritize safety over commercial interests.”
Ann Lipton, a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, agreed, telling The Verge that, legally speaking, “Anthropic is entirely insulated from profit seeking pressures, in the sense that ordinary shareholders have no ability to select the board or make business decisions.” But Lipton cautioned that the founders themselves have financial stakes in the company, which could influence their decisions.
“Investors may not mind their lack of voice as long as things go well. But if things go sour, they may become quite frustrated.”
And there’s a big difference between legal protections and immunity from market pressures. Anthropic, like all AI companies, “desperately needs capital,” Lipton said. “It’s not clear to me that any governance structure will protect against the market reality that unless Anthropic takes advantage of profit making opportunities at a faster pace than its competitors, it will not be able to fund its operations.” Lund expressed similar concerns. Anthropic will still “need to stay in the good graces of their investors,” she said, adding that “competitive pressure and capital needs can erode safety commitments over time.” Anthropic did not respond to The Verge’s request for comment on whether it felt the company could actually resist shareholder pressure to massively accelerate AI at the cost of safety.
Another potential vulnerability emerges if Anthropic’s founders start leaving. In its prospectus, the company says its success is “highly dependent on the continued service” of its senior team, particularly its founders. Dario and Daniela are singled out as being especially “critical” to advancing the company’s research and mission. But beyond the loss of leadership, their departure could trigger significant changes in how the company is structured, potentially stripping away some of the safeguards preventing Anthropic from pursuing profit over safety.
Under the proposed structure, Founder LLC would “sunset” if a majority of its members leave or the group chooses to dissolve it. Once that happens, ordinary shareholders could gain the power to weaken the trust’s protections, even against the wishes of the trustees, and without the support of the founders or employees, who hold different classes of stock, Dammann told The Verge. Other means of subverting the trust also exist, he explained, including coordinated action by the public shareholders, employee stockholders, and founders.
For now, it seems, Anthropic can probably have it both ways. But the protections designed to preserve its commitment to AI safety are far from ironclad, and much depends on market pressures, whether its founders stick around, and directions of the trust. Dammann said he sees a “fundamental dilemma that cannot be resolved in a fully satisfactory way” between Anthropic’s mission and investor demands. As long as things are going well, this tension may be manageable. “Investors may not mind their lack of voice as long as things go well,” Dammann said. “But if things go sour, they may become quite frustrated.”
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