
前景看好的安智科技投资者请做好准备,因为这家人工智能公司的七位联合创始人牢牢掌握着方向盘。
Prospective Anthropic investors better buckle up, because the AI company's seven co-founders are firmly in the driver's seat.
安多米兄妹——安智科技首席执行官达里奥·安多米和总裁丹妮拉·安多米——以及另外五人将成为“Founder LLC”的“唯一成员”。该新实体将持有公司已发行股份的 50.1% 投票权。安智科技在周一的首次公开募股招股说明书中表示,这一结构赋予他们“在可预见的未来内决定所有提交给股东投票事项结果的能力”。
The Amodei siblings — Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and President Daniela Amodei — along with five others will be the "sole members" of "Founder LLC," a new entity that will hold 50.1% of the voting power of the company's outstanding shares. The structure gives them "the ability to determine the outcome of all matters submitted to a vote of our stockholders generally for the foreseeable future," Anthropic said in its IPO prospectus on Monday.
这一安排还将限制机构和散户投资者的权力与影响力,后者必须把信任交给这小部分人工智能工程师和研究人员,随着公司迈向千亿美元以上的市值。安智科技长期以来一直试图将自己塑造成更注重安全的人工智能实验室,并建立了一个结构,旨在让创始人能够在进入季度财报世界的同时,保持这一长期使命。
The arrangement will also limit the power and influence of institutional and retail investors, who will have to put their trust in a small band of artificial intelligence engineers and researchers as the company marches toward a trillion-dollar-plus market cap. Anthropic has long tried to establish itself as the more safety conscious AI lab, and has established a structure designed to give its founders the ability to preserve that long-term mission, even as it enters the world of quarterly financial reports.
Anthropic在文件中表示:“我们的治理结构可能会产生限制主动并购提议、主动要约收购或罢免董事的代理权争夺发生可能性的效果。”“因此,我们的治理结构可能使更换董事和管理层变得更加困难,并可能产生剥夺股东以高于现行市场价格溢价出售股份机会的效果。”
"Our governance structure is likely to have the effect of limiting the likelihood of an unsolicited merger proposal, unsolicited tender offer, or proxy contest for the removal of directors," Anthropic said in the filing. "As a result, our governance structure may make it more difficult to replace our directors and management and may have the effect of depriving our stockholders of an opportunity to sell their shares at a premium over prevailing market prices."
Anthropic概述了其所说的“新颖的资本和公司治理结构”,该结构“没有直接的上市公司先例”。对于正在仔细研读该公司招股说明书的投资者来说,这又增加了一层复杂性,该说明书包含90多页的风险因素。Anthropic强调了一系列政治挑战、数据中心暂停令以及该公司在平衡安全与商业目标方面的努力是潜在风险。
Anthropic outlined what it described as a "novel capital and corporate governance structure" that has "no direct public company precedent." It's another layer of complexity for investors to consider as they pore over the company's prospectus, which includes more than 90 pages of risk factors. Anthropic highlighted a number of political challenges, data center moratoriums and the company's effort to balance safety and commercial objectives as potential risks.
对一些投资者而言,创始人控制是代际科技公司的一个决定性特征。
For some investors, founder control is a defining characteristic of generational tech companies.
Bessemer Venture Partners合伙人拜伦·迪特周一告诉CNBC,“当你拥有卓越的领导力时”,投资者通常乐于让早期管理层和创始人在进入公开市场时保留治理权。Bessemer以140亿美元估值投资了Anthropic,迪特表示,按成本计算,这是该公司116年历史上最大的一笔投资。
Byron Deeter, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, told CNBC Monday that "when you have great leadership," investors are often comfortable giving early management and founders governance into the public market. Bessemer backed Anthropic at a $14 billion valuation, and Deeter said it's the biggest investment on a cost basis in the firm's 116-year history.
“这些事情发生时确实有一些不寻常的因素,但对于定义品类、定义行业的机遇而言,你希望团队能够着眼长远,”Deeter 周一在 CNBC 节目《Squawk on the Street》中表示。“这样做有很多好处,能让团队专注于真正的创新,而不必按月甚至按季度来考量。”
"There are some unusual elements to these things when they occur, but for category-defining, industry-defining opportunities, you want teams to be able to think long term," Deeter told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Monday. "And there are a lot of benefits to being able to do that so teams can focus on true innovation, and not be month-to-month, or even quarter-to-quarter."
除了 Amodei 兄妹,Anthropic 的创始团队还包括首席计算官 Tom Brown、Anthropic 研究所负责人 Jack Clark、首席科学官 Jared Kaplan、首席架构师 Sam McCandlish 以及可解释性研究负责人 Christopher Olah。
Aside from the Amodeis, Anthropic's founding team includes Tom Brown, chief compute officer; Jack Clark, head of the Anthropic Institute; Jared Kaplan, chief science officer, Sam McCandlish, chief architect; and Christopher Olah, head of interpretability research efforts.
Anthropic 根据特拉华州法律注册为一家公益公司,这意味着它必须在股东的财务利益、受其行为影响者的最大利益以及其“公司宗旨”之间取得平衡,后者旨在促进“为人类长远利益负责任地开发和维护先进 AI”。此外,Anthropic 于 2023 年引入了一个名为“长期利益信托”的独立治理机构,该机构有权选举和罢免公司大多数董事。根据招股说明书,LTBT 将通过一类特殊的普通股——T 类普通股行使这一权力,该类股份“在其他提交股东普遍表决的事项上不享有投票权”。
Anthropic is incorporated as a public benefit corporation under Delaware law, which means it's required to balance the financial interest of stockholders, the best interests of those affected by its conduct and its "Company Purpose," which is to facilitate the "responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity." In addition, Anthropic introduced an independent governance body called the "Long-Term Benefit Trust" in 2023, which has the authority to elect and remove the majority of the company's board of directors. The LTBT will exercise that authority using a special class of common stock, Class T common stock, which "does not otherwise have voting rights on matters submitted to stockholders generally," according to the prospectus.
LTBT 目前的成员包括实验物理学家 Christopher Stubbs、前美联储主席 Ben Bernanke、克林顿健康获取倡议首席执行官 Neil Buddy Shah 以及国家安全专家 Richard Fontaine。根据文件披露,所有受托人均与 Anthropic “无财务利益关联”。
The LTBT currently includes Christopher Stubbs, an experimental physicist, Ben Bernanke, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, Neil Buddy Shah, CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative, and Richard Fontaine, a national security expert. All the trustees are "financially disinterested" from Anthropic, according to the filing.
根据纳斯达克全球精选市场的公司治理要求,Anthropic 被视为一家“受控公司”,因为 LTBT 拥有选举其董事会多数成员的权力。Anthropic 表示,计划以股票代码“ANT”在纳斯达克上市。SpaceX 于 6 月进行了有史以来规模最大的首次公开募股(IPO),同样属于受控公司,因为首席执行官埃隆·马斯克掌握着大多数投票权。
Anthropic is considered a "controlled company," according to Nasdaq Global Select Market corporate governance requirements, because the LTBT has the authority to elect the majority of its board. Anthropic said it plans to list on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol "ANT." SpaceX, which went public in June in the biggest IPO ever, is also a controlled company, because CEO Elon Musk maintains the majority of voting power.
Anthropic 的联合创始人将通过其在 Founder LLC 中的身份,拥有选举公司剩余董事会成员的权力。该公司周一表示,认为其联合创始人“具有独特优势,能够成为我们使命的管理者。”
Anthropic's co-founders will have the authority to elect the company's remaining board members through their capacity within Founder LLC. The company said Monday that it believes its co-founders are "distinctly equipped to be stewards of our mission."
Anthropic 称,Founder LLC 及其 LTBT 的投票权“并非源于或与其在公司中的经济利益成比例”,且不会被稀释或以其他方式减少。公司表示,其资本结构将在“可预见的未来”将投票权集中在这两个实体手中。“此外,LTBT、Founder LLC 以及我们的各位联合创始人可能拥有与你们不同的利益,并可能以你们不同意且可能损害你们利益的方式进行投票,”Anthropic 表示。
Anthropic said Founder LLC's and its LTBT voting power are "not derived from or proportionate to economic interests" in the company, and won't be diluted or otherwise reduced. The company said its capital structure will concentrate voting power within these two entities for "the foreseeable future." "Moreover, the LTBT, Founder LLC, and our individual co-founders may have interests that differ from yours and may vote in a way with which you disagree and that may be adverse to your interests," Anthropic said.