Anthropic’s potential $2 trillion IPO could turn staff into millionaires—now the AI firm is asking candidates what they’d do if stock fell to zero

Anthropic, targeting a $2 trillion IPO that could eclipse SpaceX, is asking job candidates in culture interviews how they would react if the company abandoned its AI ambitions for safety reasons and its stock fell to zero, according to Axios. CEO Dario Amodei, with an estimated net worth of $15.5 billion, has expressed concerns about financial incentives affecting employee commitment to the mission. The company offers base salaries of $320,000 to $405,000 for staff software engineering roles and has more than 500 open positions.

As Anthropic targets a $2 trillion IPO https://fortune.com/2026/08/14/anthropics-2-trillion-problem-its-underlying-business-is-nowhere-near-the-ipo-valuation-it-wants/ that could set records—and even eclipse SpaceX https://fortune.com/2026/08/13/anthropic-ipo-2-trillion-october-largest-ever-spacex/ —the blockbuster valuation is expected to create an unprecedented amount of wealth for the AI company’s more than 2,500 employees. But that potential multimillion-dollar employee windfall appears to be raising concern among company leaders. Anthropic is reportedly now asking job candidates during culture interviews how they would feel if the company someday abandoned its AI ambitions for safety reasons—and that decision caused its stock to fall to zero, according to Axios https://www.axios.com/2026/08/24/scoop-anthropic-candidates-face-blunt-money-question . “I was honest and said no, I would not be happy if the stock went to 0,” one candidate, who discussed the interview process on the anonymous workplace site Blind https://www.teamblind.com/post/anthropic-culture-interview-wk5kj8z1 , said. “I would want to align doing the most good and remaining ethical while building a sustaining business.” Anthropic https://fortune.com/company/anthropic/ CEO Dario Amodei, who has an estimated net worth https://www.forbes.com/profile/dario-amodei/ of $15.5 billion, has reportedly https://www.axios.com/2026/08/03/ai-talent-wars-openai-google-meta-anthropic expressed concerns about the way the company’s enormous financial incentives could affect its ability to retain employees who are genuinely committed to its mission. Anthropic, a public benefit corporation, has long sought to distinguish itself from competition like OpenAI through a broader focus on AI safety and the “long-term benefit of humanity.” “At the end of the day, the mission is what we’re all here for,” the company’s values statement reads https://www.anthropic.com/company . “It gives us a shared purpose and allows us to act swiftly together, rather than being pulled in multiple directions by competing goals.” Anthropic is shelling out base salaries of $400K+ as the battle for tech talent rages on Anthropic is simultaneously fighting to attract the world’s top AI talent while grappling with what could happen if that talent becomes extraordinarily wealthy in the process. The company is competing with the likes of Meta https://fortune.com/2025/06/18/metas-100-million-signing-bonuses-openai-staff-extreme-ai-talent-war/ , Google https://fortune.com/2022/02/02/google-hired-tech-talent/ , Microsoft https://fortune.com/company/microsoft/ , and OpenAI for top researchers and engineers—and resultantly offering compensation packages well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Anthropic is currently dangling base salaries of $320,000 to $405,000 for staff software engineering roles, for example. And there’s plenty more work to be done. The company currently has more than 500 open roles https://www.anthropic.com/careers/jobs , including about 90 in sales, over 60 in AI research & engineering, and 47 in security. In order to land an offer after such a highly competitive process, some candidates are reportedly spending more than $4,000 on private coaching to help them get hired. “Spend a few thousand dollars, and now your salary goes up by $200,000—that calculus makes sense,” Aline Lerner, founder of prep company Interviewing.io, told Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-05-28/anthropic-job-recruiting-brings-in-diverse-careers-to-build-claude . AI’s wealth boom could create thousands of millionaires—but Amodei warns it could ‘break society’ The potential wealth creation at Anthropic is part of a much bigger phenomenon unfolding across the AI industry. Following SpaceX’s $1.77 trillion IPO https://fortune.com/2026/06/03/spacex-ipo-share-price-index-funds-valuation-public/ , thousands of current and former employees—from welders and coders to managers and executives— became millionaires as their company equity soared in value https://fortune.com/2026/06/11/spacex-ipo-wealth-jumps-executives-to-skilled-trade-welders-becoming-millionaires-elon-musk-trillionaire-status/ . Roughly 400 current and former SpaceX employees saw their stakes become worth more than $100 million. As AI valuations continue to soar and employees cash in on equity grants, it is expected that more people will see similar wealth booms. However, Amodei has warned that the economic benefits of AI could become concentrated among a relatively small group of people. As a result, he and Anthropic’s other six cofounders, including his sister, Daniela Amodei https://fortune.com/ranking/most-powerful-women/2026/daniela-amodei/ , recently committed to giving away 80% of their wealth https://fortune.com/2026/01/27/anthropic-billionaire-cofounders-ceo-dario-amodei-giving-away-80-percent-of-wealth-fighting-inequality-ai-revolution/ . “The thing to worry about is a level of wealth concentration that will break society,” Dario Amodei wrote in a letter https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology 1-i-m-sorry-dave published earlier this year. Amodei called out fellow tech leaders who have grown increasingly skeptical of philanthropy https://fortune.com/2026/07/04/historic-american-giving-in-2025-despite-economic-squeeze-billionaires-like-elon-musk-complaints-indicators-of-great-wealth-transfer/ , arguing that wealthy individuals have a responsibility to help address the inequality https://fortune.com/2026/08/15/ai-billionaires-philanthropy-broken/ that AI could exacerbate. “Wealthy individuals have an obligation to help solve this problem,” Amodei wrote. “It is sad to me that many wealthy individuals especially in the tech industry have recently adopted a cynical and nihilistic attitude that philanthropy is inevitably fraudulent or useless.” Fortune reached out to Anthropic for comment. breaks the traditional barrier between audience and newsroom. The show transforms Fortune Daily Fortune ’s trusted reporting into actionable, conversational, and entertaining insights for an emerging class of business leaders. Watch here.