Dario Amodei made $18 million last year as CEO of Claude AI developer Anthropic, the company's IPO filing shows, putting him in the middle ranks of top executives at major technology firms in terms of compensation.
Anthropic is preparing for an IPO as early as this fall that could value the company at more than $2 trillion, ‌according to a prospectus seen by Reuters. Amodei's pay last year puts him above CEOs at Alphabet and Amazon, but behind those at Oracle and Nvidia.
Amodei's pay leans heavily toward stock and other non-cash compensation, suggesting that like many other tech founders, his yearly salary will account for just a fraction of his wealth.
For years now, rising US CEO pay has far outpaced gains for the average worker, while the federal minimum wage has not budged since 2009 when it was raised to $7.25 an hour. Critics worry that widespread adoption of AI could exacerbate inequality.
Courtney Yu, director of research for executive compensation data firm Equilar, said Amodei's $18 million haul "seems on the lower end for a company valued at $2 trillion, but it will be interesting to see how that changes once the company goes public" and his full ownership stake is shown. With six other co-founders, Amodei may wind up getting a lesser share of the wealth created by the IPO compared with other major tech CEOs, Yu added.
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