The tech reporter who could become a $28 billion Anthropic billionaire
Jack Clark left Bloomberg in 2016 to join a little-known AI research lab named OpenAI. Ten years later, his Anthropic stake could nearly double in value at a $2 trillion IPO valuation, while his role in the company’s public-benefit fund adds another dimension to his fortune.
In 2016, Bloomberg technology reporter Jack Clark told his editor he wanted to leave journalism to join OpenAI, then a little-known research lab with no clear business model.
“Terrible idea,” his editor, Alistair Barr, recalled writing in Business Insider. Barr also admitted he had “selfishly wanted Jack to stay at Bloomberg and continue covering Google and AI.”
Clark left anyway. A decade later, he is an Anthropic cofounder whose stake could be worth roughly $28.6 billion if the AI company reaches a $2 trillion valuation in its planned IPO.
Anthropic filed its registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week, but has yet to set a price range. Clark holds about 242.3 million shares, including options and restricted stock scheduled to vest within 60 days.
At Anthropic’s last private share price of $58.90, his holdings are worth about $14.3 billion. At a $2 trillion valuation, based on pre-IPO estimates rather than the filing, they could be worth approximately $28.6 billion.
Clark is listed as a selling stockholder. The seven cofounders named in the filing each own roughly 1.4% of the company, giving them a combined stake of about 10%.
Three other details stand out. Clark is expected to be among the first managers of the Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, which holds 846.8 million shares valued at about $49.9 billion at the last private share price. Each cofounder has pledged to donate 80% of their Anthropic equity, but the filing says the pledges are not legally binding and can be revoked. The timing, amounts and recipients have not been determined. The seven cofounders will initially control an LLC holding shares with 50.1% of the company’s voting power. The filing warns that voting control could diverge from economic ownership as shares are donated.
From journalism to AI policy
Clark’s path to Anthropic differed from that of most of its founders. He studied English literature and creative writing at the University of East Anglia in England before working as a technology journalist at ZDNet UK, The Register and Bloomberg.
In 2016, he launched Import AI, a weekly newsletter covering AI research that he continues to write. Two months later, he joined OpenAI in strategy and communications, eventually becoming its policy director. He left in 2020 to join the Amodeis at Anthropic.
While several Anthropic founders came from physics, mathematics and computer science, Clark brought a journalist’s perspective to the company. He had interviewed prominent AI researchers and questioned their predictions about artificial general intelligence before becoming part of the industry himself. Anthropic president Daniela Amodei also studied English literature, but Clark is the only cofounder whose pre-AI career was in journalism.
At OpenAI and Anthropic, Clark has focused on explaining AI to policymakers and the public. He testified before Congress, helped establish Stanford’s AI Index and served on the U.S. National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee from 2021 to 2024.
In March, he became Anthropic’s head of public benefit and launched the Anthropic Institute, a roughly 30-person group examining AI’s effects on employment, security and governance. The institute brings together teams studying model risks, social impacts and the economy. Clark handed over the policy team he built to Sarah Heck.
His public comments have been unusually candid for a senior AI executive. At an event this year, he said that “one can imagine the technology killing everyone,” according to the Aspen Institute’s communications head. On his website, he signs off with the words: “Things will be weird. Be not afraid.”
