By Natalia Renta, Associate Director for Corporate Governance & Power
Tech oligarchs made headlines in September by calling for a slowdown in AI development given concerns about its grave threats to humanity. Despite Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei being a prominent voice in that call, he is still planning to push ahead with his company’s initial public offering (IPO) that is expected shortly after the November election.
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez noted that while “Silicon Valley billionaires want us to believe that AI robots will destroy humanity…the biggest threat to humanity are the tech oligarchs themselves.” This threat comes from a system that allows tech oligarchs to consolidate their power over huge and powerful corporations, recklessly inflate the AI bubble, and push the risks onto working people’s retirement savings.
This three-part commentary series will cover different aspects of this threat as they relate to Anthropic’s IPO and other mega IPOs:
- The first part will discuss state corporate law changes that allow tech oligarchs to consolidate their power within huge, powerful public corporations.
- The second part will discuss how the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is changing its rules so that tech oligarchs can maintain the kind of power and control they have in their private companies — as well as the opacity of their operations and financials — when they become public.
- The third part will discuss the risks the Anthropic IPO and other mega IPOs pose to workers’ retirement savings.
