Anthropic pledges 5% stake as 73% of young Americans fear AI job losses

Anthropic said Sunday it intends to set aside 5% of its shares for a new public benefit fund, a figure that could increase alongside its valuation. Operating as a wholly owned limited liability company, the new fund is structured to receive discretionary tranches of Anthropic shares—specifically 2% for each 50% growth milestone achieved above a yet-to-be-revealed baseline. 

According to the San Francisco-based firm, the fund will also support research into AI’s societal impact, including potential job displacement and other disruptions caused by the technology. The timing is significant as more Americans are growing wary of losing their jobs to artificial intelligence. 

Pew Research found that 52% of Americans are now more worried than excited about AI’s role in everyday life. Additionally, 71% of adults believe AI will cut U.S. jobs over the next two decades. This shift in perspective cuts across most age groups, including young adults under 30, with 73% now predicting fewer jobs, up from 61% two years ago.

AI job displacement puts pressure on technology companies

The proposed fund comes at a time when technology companies face increasing economic pressure to deal with the consequences of AI systems becoming more advanced.

AI tools can increase productivity and reduce costs, but they could also automate tasks previously done by human workers and force workers to retrain or find new ones.

Funding research into these changes could help policymakers, employers, and communities better understand which sectors face the greatest disruption and what support affected workers may need. Anthropic’s initiative could also establish a model for how AI developers share some of the benefits of their growth with the wider public.

Anthropic’s Public Benefit Fund will not receive political donations

The Anthropic Public Benefit Fund will likely target nonprofit donations, direct aid distributions, and support for workers affected by AI progress. The company explained that, even though it has already invested $200 million in analyzing AI’s societal footprint, given the current pace of development, it may need to adopt more assertive approaches. So far, it believes the new fund will offer the flexibility they need.

The firm also stressed that the fund’s assets will be entirely cordoned off from US or international lobbying and political donations. It added, “Because of the way the Fund is structured, the more Anthropic grows, the larger the share of the company that can be dedicated expressly to the public good.”

The Claude developer is still prepping for its initial public offering set for November. Lise Buyer of IPO advisory firm Class V Group believes the new fund reveal helps the company build a more positive public image ahead of the offering. She further stated, “Of course, it is also to burnish their reputation at a time when AI is coming under significant scrutiny.”

With the IPO and the new fund, about 20% of Anthropic’s shares will be locked in for public purposes. That total excludes any extra shares that could be handed over if the company hits its future growth milestones.

Anthropic earned close to $17 billion in Q3

Recently, Anthropic disclosed that it was operating at a profit after its third-quarter revenue reached $16.8 billion, an increase of almost 50%. Still, its growth has eased from the exceptional pace it maintained earlier in the year, leaving some of its financial backers less satisfied than expected, according to investors and analysts.

Up until now, Anthropic hasn’t officially updated its annualized revenue since it hit $65 billion at the end of July. But based on the latest numbers, research firm SemiAnalysis projects that annualized sales have grown to about $74 billion. This figure falls below the expectations some investors expressed over the summer. Some investors believed Anthropic could end the year with an annualized revenue run rate far exceeding $100 billion. 

Nonetheless, Joey Brookhart, an AI labs analyst with SemiAnalysis, said the past three months had seen investors repeatedly revise their annualized revenue projections for Anthropic lower. He added that the firm is also facing intense competition from OpenAI, which has contributed to the decline in expectations. 

“Now Anthropic is in a two-horse race, rather than the one-horse race in the first half of the year . . . coming into today, investor expectations had come down,” he said.

At the moment, sources say the company is cash flow positive, earning $1.70 in Q3 revenue for every dollar spent on computing power. Executives have also pinned adjusted operating margins at 11 percent, which excludes stock compensation.