Anthropic’s roots run through effective altruism, SBF

The Wall Street Journal’s Berber Jin and Keach Hagey trace Anthropic’s AI-safety culture to the Bay Area rationalist and effective-altruist network that shaped co-founder Dario Amodei. The network also linked the startup to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who invested $500 million in 2021.

FTX became one of Anthropic’s largest shareholders before its collapse, and its shares were later sold to help repay creditors.

In a related report, the Journal’s Philip Wegmann and Amrith Ramkumar said Amodei dined privately with President Trump as Anthropic faces federal pressure over calls for tighter AI oversight and objections to autonomous weapons and surveillance.

The DeAI question is who sets AI’s safety rules. Anthropic’s history shows how a concentrated private network can shape a major model developer, while its clash with Washington tests whether oversight stays inside labs and government or opens to independent scrutiny.