Anthropic sets its IPO range: up to $1.404 trillion, about $250M per founder
Follow-up to Saturday Nov 7: Anthropic's IPO price slips, OpenAI raises at $1.25 trillionUpdate on Saturday's token, when IPO buyers talked about a valuation as low as $1.1 trillion. Now Anthropic has set its price range: $70 to $78 per share. At the top of the range, TechCrunch counts an implied valuation of $1.404 trillion, fully diluted. The New York Times and The Verge say it could be one of the biggest IPOs ever, even if it falls short of earlier hopes. The Wall Street Journal's headline speaks of a $1.3 trillion valuation.
TechCrunch also reports that all seven co-founders will each sell exactly the same number of shares. At the middle of the price range, that is about $250 million in cash each. The founders stay in control of the company.
The same week, Anthropic is showing new products: Claude Meetings, which drafts plans and timelines while people talk, plus Claude Whiteboards, Sheets and Data. The Verge calls it Anthropic's own office suite. Next comes the final price and the first day of trading.
An IPO brings public shareholders who want growth every quarter. The pattern worries me: when this much money arrives, the pressure to ship faster grows, and safety work can slide down the list. The founders keep control, so the real question is who checks them now.
