Google’s former CEO reportedly owns 1% of Anthropic: How Eric Schmidt’s investment is a lesson in wealth creation
Eric Schmidt reportedly owns about 1% of Anthropic after investing in the company early. The report is about the shares he personally owns. Their possible value today and any money he has actually made from selling them are two different things.
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Eric Schmidt led Google from 2001 to 2011 and later served as its executive chairman. Reuters' report is about Schmidt as a personal investor. It does not announce a new investment by Google or its parent company, Alphabet.
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Bloomberg News, citing people who know about the matter, reports that Schmidt owns about 1% of Anthropic. Reuters also reports this figure, citing Bloomberg. This is a reported estimate, not a new public disclosure of his shareholding confirmed by Schmidt.
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Bloomberg reports that Schmidt invested tens of millions of dollars in Anthropic's Series A funding round. This means he backed the company at an early stage. He did not buy the shares at the company's current value or apply for shares in a public offering taking place now.
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Reuters says Anthropic is the company that developed Claude and names Amazon and Google among its business backers. These companies are part of Anthropic's funding and computing network. Their relationships with Anthropic are separate from the personal stake Schmidt reportedly owns.
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If a company's value rises, the estimated value of an investor's shares can also rise. But that does not mean the investor has received cash. To work out the profit actually made, we need to know how many shares were sold, the price they sold for and how much the investor originally paid.
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Bloomberg says it is not clear whether Schmidt has sold any of his shares since first investing. Schmidt and Anthropic declined to comment. So it would be wrong to say that he has kept all his shares or that he has already earned a possible large profit from a future stock market listing.