Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has pledged a portion of his company shares to charity with unusual conditions, according to an SEC filing.
In a securities filing this week, Anthropic revealed new details about the size of Amodei's ownership in the company and the massive windfall that he and the other six founders will likely enjoy after its IPO next month. According to the filing, Amodei and the other founders each own over 200 million shares, which could be worth billions if Anthropic reaches its expected valuation of over $1 trillion.
Much of it will go to charity. In its filing, Anthropic says the company co-founders have each pledged to dedicate 80% of their personal equity in Anthropic to philanthropic causes. The directive follows Amodei's open letter in January warning that the wealthy had an obligation to support the workers and families who will be left behind by artificial intelligence.
"It is sad to me that wealthy individuals (especially in the tech industry) have recently adopted a cynical and nihilistic attitude that philanthropy is inevitably fraudulent or useless," he wrote.
Along with the founder gifts, Anthropic also said it will match the donations of company shares to charity by Anthropic staff worth billions of dollars.
For his own giving, Amodei has chosen the favorite vehicle of the new tech wealthy: donor-advised funds. DAFs allow donors to contribute cash, shares or other assets into a private charitable investment account managed by a public charity. The donor gets an immediate tax deduction but the charity can make the grants over time, giving donors more flexibility and time to disburse the funds. Tech founders also like DAFs because they can donate highly appreciated private shares and avoid a capital gains tax from any sale.
Along with the 240.6 million shares that he owns outright, Amodei disclosed an additional 4.6 million shares "subject to voting proxies," according to the filing. In a footnote, Anthropic explained that Amodei has the right to vote the shares that are currently owned or "subsequently acquired" by donor-advised funds.
The two donor-advised funds listed in the filing are Daffy Charitable Fund and Dechomai Asset Trust. According to the filing, Anthropic has "master donation" agreements with the DAFs, where the DAFs receive share donations from the company or employees. Amodei said in his January essay that Anthropic's staff have pledged billions of dollars in company shares, which Anthropic "is committed to matching."
Adam Nash, the CEO and co-founder of Daffy, said the new wave of AI wealth promises to usher in an era of more committed philanthropy.
"We're seeing an immense amount of wealth creation," said Nash, the former CEO of Wealthfront and an angel investor. "Every time we've seen a burst of wealth creation in this country, a percentage of wealth and assets that gets put aside for charity. I'm seeing a lot of 20-somethings and 30-somethings who are thinking about 'what is this wealth for?' 'What is the impact of what we're creating.'"
Nash said he can't comment on any specific companies or individuals Daffy works with, including Amodei and Anthropic. But he said Daffy was created to make it easier for individual donors to give and to help companies institutionalize giving.
Touting itself as a "401 (k) for giving," Daffy is working with several AI giants, including OpenAI, to allow users to contribute private stock or restricted shares that many charities refuse to accept. Daffy has grown to over $2 billion in charitable assets five years after its launch.
Amodei's provision that allows him to vote shares pledged to a DAF, with certain restrictions and conditions, is likely to stir debate in the nonprofit world. Rules around charitable gifts mandate that a donor gets a charitable deduction for giving shares in return for giving up control. Retaining the voting rights on the shares may be considered retaining a form of control, according to some DAF managers.
Nash said that it's fairly common for donors to place restrictions on charitable gifts of shares, including timing of their sale, voting rights or other conditions. The two basic guidelines require that the gifts be irrevocable and that the non-profit retain ultimate control over the investment within the restrictions.
He said removing barriers to giving, like voting rights, leads to more philanthropy.
"Daffy was based on this simple idea -- that we could increase charitable giving by trillions of dollars if we just made it easier for people to not only put money aside for charity, but kind of pre commit," he said. "I cannot tell you how excited I am to see that in this new wave of companies, we're starting to see founders and companies actually bring that same logic."
