Who gets the upside? What Anthropic reveals about sharing corporate value

Imagine a company developing technology that allows its customers to do the same work with far fewer people. Revenues grow, profits improve and the share price doubles. Executives receive substantial awards under their long-term incentive plans, while shareholders enjoy the increase in value.

But the people whose jobs the technology has displaced receive very little of that financial upside.

The incentive plans have not necessarily failed. They were designed to reward management for creating shareholder value, not to decide who else should benefit from technological progress.

But what happens when the people enjoying the financial upside are not the same people bearing the costs of creating it?

Anthropic’s proposed IPO offers an interesting way into that question.

An incentive plan for the public good?

On 26 October 2026, Anthropic, the developer of Claude, filed its registration statement for a proposed Nasdaq listing. Anthropic has allocated approximately 847 million non-voting shares to a Public Benefit Fund, representing 5% of its fully diluted equity on the basis described in its prospectus. The fund is currently a wholly owned subsidiary.

The board has also approved a framework under which the fund could receive further equity each time Anthropic’s share price rises by another 50%, beginning with the IPO price. Each allocation could amount to a further 2% of an expanded share base. The price must remain above the relevant threshold for a sustained period, although the decision to allocate shares remains discretionary.

The fund could make substantial charitable donations or provide direct financial support to particular groups. Anthropic has specifically identified the potential impact of AI on employment as one area where it might help.

What makes this interesting is the connection with executive remuneration. Anthropic itself draws the comparison. Technology companies routinely provide executives with increasing equity rewards as their businesses become more valuable. Why not direct some of that additional value towards public benefit?

At first glance, it looks rather like a long-term incentive plan for society, but the analogy has limits. The intended beneficiaries are not being rewarded for improving Anthropic’s performance. They have no obvious way of influencing its share price. But the underlying economics are familiar - as the business becomes more valuable, a pool intended for wider participation can grow.

Equity funded philanthropy is not new. Salesforce’s 1-1-1 model dates from 1999, while Patagonia’s owners transferred their shares to a purpose trust and nonprofit structure in 2022.

What distinguishes Anthropic is the proposal to increase the allocation as successive share-price milestones are achieved which is an intriguing development. But how much value has actually been committed?

A promise to share is not the same as sharing

Anthropic’s initial 5% allocation sounds substantial. There is, however, an important qualification. The Public Benefit Fund sits within the Anthropic group. Its shares are legally outstanding but are excluded from shares outstanding for consolidated accounting purposes while the subsidiary holds them.

Setting aside shares within a corporate group is not the same as transferring wealth to independent beneficiaries. Nor does that mean the arrangement has no economic cost until money is paid out. A credible commitment to give away value in the future can affect what investors are prepared to pay today, particularly where the resources have been legally committed to that purpose.

The distinction becomes clearer if we think about an ordinary executive share award. We would never assess an award simply by counting the shares. We would want to know when the participant becomes entitled to them, what conditions must be satisfied and how much discretion the remuneration committee retains.

Anthropic’s fund therefore deserves the same scrutiny. Three questions are particularly useful.

First, who decides whether the fund receives money? Meeting a share-price milestone does not automatically trigger an additional allocation. The board can still decide whether to contribute.

Second, who decides how it is spent? An independent organisation could have a firm entitlement to funding while retaining flexibility over which projects or people receive support.

Third, can the commitment be changed? A future board might take a different view about priorities, funding or the amount that should be distributed.

These are questions about funding, deployment and amendment discretion. The answers determine how durable the commitment really is.

Anthropic currently retains considerable control, although it plans to develop the fund’s governance further. Its public benefit corporation status and unusual board arrangements reinforce its commitment to a wider mission, but do not themselves give people affected by AI a right to funding.

That is not necessarily a criticism. There may be good reasons to retain flexibility when the consequences of a technology are difficult to predict. An independent fund could, for example, have an enforceable right to resources without any individual worker having a personal right to a payment. That would still be a meaningful commitment.

But even a binding promise leaves another question. Is share price actually the right measure?

Sharing success is not the same as addressing harm

Imagine an automation business whose technology contributes to significant job losses, but whose own share price falls because competitors squeeze its margins. The social consequences of its products might be substantial even though there is no additional financial upside to share.

The reverse could also happen. A company might become considerably more valuable without creating corresponding employment disruption. And people who lose their jobs may need assistance long before a share-price milestone is achieved.

All of which exposes an important distinction. If the objective is to share financial success, linking contributions to increases in corporate value makes sense. But if the objective is to address identifiable harm, it may be a poor way of deciding how much support is available or when it arrives.

A better arrangement might combine a predictable level of funding for immediate needs with additional contributions linked to financial performance. An independent organisation could then decide how the resources are used by reference to actual needs rather than fluctuations in the company’s valuation.

Of course, shareholders may prefer to receive their returns and decide for themselves which causes to support. But a collective commitment can achieve something that individual donations may not. Reliable funding could support multi-year retraining programmes or allow affected communities to plan for technological change. There may also be commercial benefits in helping customers and communities manage disruption, although those benefits should be demonstrated rather than assumed.

The challenge is to create something that delivers more than a reassuring announcement about corporate responsibility.

Could this work in the UK?

Consider a private equity-backed business developing industrial automation technology. Suppose the investors agree that 2% of the proceeds otherwise available to them above a specified return hurdle will be allocated to an independent fund supporting workforce transition.

If those proceeds exceed the hurdle by £100 million, the fund receives £2 million. The economics are straightforward, and familiar to anyone who has designed a management incentive arrangement. There is a defined hurdle, a participation percentage and an agreed source of funding. The important difference is that the financial entitlement belongs to an organisation supporting people outside the business.

The parties must decide whose proceeds are reduced. In this example, the contribution comes from the fund investors’ share of the upside, rather than management’s incentive awards or the sponsor’s carried interest. A different allocation of cost would be a different commercial bargain.

The commitment would also need to survive changes in how value is realised. A company might generate substantial proceeds through refinancing, partial disposals or distributions well before a final sale. A right triggered only by a narrowly defined exit might be worth considerably less than expected.

And the fund need not actually own shares. A contractual right to a percentage of proceeds might achieve the same objective more simply.

For a UK listed company, an equity-based arrangement would raise additional questions about company law, funding, shareholder expectations and the legal status of the recipient organisation. Anthropic’s use of a wholly owned subsidiary could not simply be replicated under UK rules. An independent trust, contractual entitlement or cash-funded arrangement might be more appropriate.

The interesting innovation is not necessarily the use of equity itself, but the application of participation arrangements to a wider purpose.

We already have the tools to do this. The question is whether there is a sufficiently good commercial reason to use them.

Thinking differently about participation

Anthropic’s Public Benefit Fund remains an experiment. Further equity allocations are discretionary, its longer-term governance is still developing and the relationship between financial performance and social need is far from straightforward. 

We have spent decades refining how investors, executives and employees share in corporate success. Hurdles, ratchets, performance conditions and waterfalls all determine who gets what, when and on what terms. 

There is no reason why that thinking must stop with those groups.

Conventional philanthropy may sometimes be the better answer. But in other circumstances, giving an independent organisation a defined share of future value could create a more credible and lasting commitment.

We already know how to design incentives that reward people for creating corporate value. Perhaps we should become equally thoughtful about who else gets to share in it.

At Burges Salmon, we advise listed companies, private equity sponsors and management teams on equity incentives and participation arrangements, bringing together the commercial economics with the legal, tax, funding and governance considerations. Anthropic’s approach shows how that expertise can have applications beyond conventional executive remuneration.