Claude AI-maker Anthropic to buy back employee shares: What it may mean for the AI startup backed by Google and Amazon

Anthropic, the AI startup backed by Amazon and Google, is planning its first-ever employee share buyback. According to a report by The Information, Anthropic will buy shares from current and former employees at a valuation of $61.5 billion. This matches the valuation from its recent $3.5 billion Series E funding round. The offer, as per the report, will give employees a chance to cash out some of their shares while helping Anthropic hold on to key staff.
Employee liquidity programs like this are becoming more common among AI startups. By offering early chances to sell shares, companies hope to keep employees motivated without relying only on high salaries.
For those unaware, Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives, including CEO Dario Amodei. The company’s value has grown quickly—from about $15 billion in March 2024 to over $60 billion by the end of the year, thanks to major investments from Amazon, Google, and Salesforce Ventures.
Anthropic’s chatbot, Claude, has become a strong competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, especially with businesses that value safety and transparency.
By the end of 2024, Anthropic’s annualized revenue reached around $1 billion, up from $100 million at the start of the year, according to The Information. The company's fast revenue growth and hiring needs have pushed it to offer better incentives, like share buybacks, to attract top researchers and engineers.
Earlier this year, a California judge denied Universal Music Group's bid for a preliminary injunction against Anthropic for using song lyrics to train its AI chatbot, citing an overly broad request and lack of demonstrated irreparable harm. Music publishers, including UMG, Concord, and ABKCO, filed a lawsuit against Anthropic in 2023, alleging copyright infringement involving lyrics from at least 500 songs by artists such as Beyoncé and the Rolling Stones. They claimed that Anthropic used these lyrics without permission to train Claude to respond to human prompts.
The AI company then persuaded a California federal judge to reject the preliminary injunction.