TLDR
Anthropic's seven co-founders are seeking shareholder approval for a super-voting share class that would hand them 50.1 per cent of votes on most corporate matters, despite each holding roughly 2 per cent in economic terms. A separate $11.6 billion infrastructure deal with Akamai adds commercial weight as the company eyes an IPO at valuations as high as $2 trillion.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Founders want the votes, not the money
Anthropic's seven co-founders, including CEO Dario Amodei and president Daniela Amodei, are asking shareholders to approve a new super-voting share class that would concentrate 50.1 per cent of voting power in their hands on most ordinary corporate decisions. Each founder holds roughly 2 per cent in economic terms, and the proposed class carries no additional financial rights. Control and capital are being split cleanly: the founders would govern without owning.
How the governance layers stack up
The super-voting proposal sits alongside existing structural protections Anthropic embedded in 2023. When Anthropic closed its Series C round on 19 September 2023, it amended its corporate charter to create Class T stock held exclusively by the Long-Term Benefit Trust, granting that trust authority to elect and remove board members and phase in a majority vote within four years.[2] The Trust is a Delaware purpose trust with five financially disinterested members whose brief is to ensure Anthropic balances stockholder returns against its public benefit mission.[2]
Layered on top of all this is the founders' pledge to donate 80 per cent of their personal gains. A company adding governance mechanisms one on another before a public listing is preparing for the activist pressure that arrives with it.
Valuation trajectory
Anthropic raised $30 billion in Series G funding at a post-money valuation of $380 billion, announced on 12 February 2026.[3] Secondary market pricing has since implied valuations as high as $2 trillion, a more than five-fold jump in under a year. Coatue founder and portfolio manager Philippe Laffont said that since his firm's initial investment in 2025, Anthropic's focus on agentic coding and enterprise-grade AI systems has accelerated its progress toward large-scale adoption.[3]
The Akamai deal and what it signals
On 24 September 2026, Akamai Technologies announced an $11.6 billion multi-year agreement to support Anthropic's CPU workload growth at scale.[1] The deal includes an option to expand by a further $9 billion, putting the total potential commitment at roughly $20 billion.[1] As part of the arrangement, Akamai issued Anthropic a warrant for non-voting convertible Series B Preferred Stock representing up to approximately 5 per cent of Akamai's common stock outstanding, with roughly 2 per cent vesting immediately and the remaining 3 per cent vesting as the relationship expands.[1]
Akamai co-founder and CEO Dr Tom Leighton said Anthropic is advancing the AI revolution and his company is thrilled they chose Akamai's capabilities for building and operating AI infrastructure at scale.[1] A seven-year infrastructure commitment of this size functions as a forward revenue signal, the kind of contracted spend that sits near the front of an IPO prospectus. Anthropic's Series G closed on 12 February 2026 at a $380 billion valuation; the Akamai deal landed roughly six weeks after secondary-market pricing reached $2 trillion.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is a super-voting share class?
Does the founders' extra voting power give them more profit?
What is the Long-Term Benefit Trust?
How large is the Akamai deal and what does Anthropic get from it?
Jonas Valenti writes about search and how businesses get discovered. He has spent years watching what makes a company visible online, and is unsentimental about tactics that no longer work.
