Keep pulling the thread on Eric Ries.
Anthropic's for-profit board includes directors who are appointed by and accountable to an external group of trustees composed of AI safety experts.
The external trustees who appoint some of Anthropic's board members do not hold any equity in the company.
A Harvard Law School study found that only 20% of founders of venture-backed companies remain as CEO three years after their company goes public.
Novo Nordisk operates under a two-tiered "industrial foundation" structure where the for-profit company is owned and governed by a nonprofit foundation.
An intervention by the nonprofit foundation governing Novo Nordisk, aimed at protecting the company's mission, ultimately created over $500 billion in shareholder value.
Academic research indicates that companies with a foundation-based governance structure, like Novo Nordisk and Zeiss, are six times more likely to survive for 50 years than conventionally structured companies.
The board of Vectura accepted a takeover bid from Philip Morris for 165 pence per share, choosing it over a lower bid of 155 pence per share from a private equity firm.
After acquiring Vectura for 1.1 billion pounds, Philip Morris took a $900 million write-down within three years and ultimately dismantled the company.
Cloudflare's CEO, Matthew Prince, made the strategic decision to offer SSL encryption for free to all customers, despite it being a major revenue driver at the time.
Eric Ries asserts that Groupon's decision to increase email frequency from one per day to as many as eight, while profitable in the short-term, ultimately destroyed the company's long-term success.
Most major AI labs, including Anthropic, are incorporated as Public Benefit Corporations (PBCs).
Anthropic implemented its Long-Term Benefit Trust governance structure at the time of its Series C funding round.