Niko

I hope everyone understands that the reason why Dario Amodei thinks he can eliminate mental illness in 10 years isn't because he's going to develop a drug that requires long-term follow up. It's by embryo screening. He wrote about it in Machines of Loving Grace in October 2024.

Anthropic is about to sell the public a trillion-dollar company controlled by 2 shares worth less than a penny. And the people buying it will have almost no way to change anything that happens next. I read the voting section of Anthropic's IPO filing, and I think it's the most one-sided deal ever offered to regular investors at this size: There is exactly ONE Class F share. It belongs to an LLC owned by 7 of Anthropic's co-founders, and it carries 50.1% of all the votes. There is exactly ONE Class T share. It belongs to Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust, and it elects a majority of the board. If Anthropic were ever liquidated, each of those 2 shares would get its par value of $0.00001. The public gets Class A shares instead. And Anthropic's own filing says this structure may effectively eliminate their ability to influence important decisions, including a sale of the company. So here's what that means for anyone who buys: - They can't replace the board if the company stumbles, because the trust picks the majority and the founders hold half the vote. - They can't push for a sale, even if someone offers a huge premium. - They can't stop the board from putting the mission ahead of their money. Anthropic is a public benefit corporation, so the board has to weigh shareholders against the long-term benefit of humanity. - And they can't easily sue over it. Delaware law requires at least 2% of the shares or $2 million worth of stock to bring that kind of claim. This isn't some far-off hypothetical either. The filing warns that slowing AI development for safety may not maximize stockholder value. It also says Anthropic recently paused training a next-generation model for more than a month over safety and security concerns. A public shareholder would've had zero say in that pause. And here's the part I can't get past: Each co-founder has pledged to give 80% of their Anthropic equity to charity. The Class F vote stays at 50.1% no matter how much stock they still own. So the founders can give away most of their money and keep all of their control. Dario Amodei told 60 Minutes last year that he's deeply uncomfortable with AI decisions being made by a few companies and a few people. When he was asked who elected him, he said no one. Now his company's IPO hands 50.1% of the votes to 7 people, and he's one of them. And guess who's being lined up to buy it? Anthropic has weighed reserving 15% to 20% of the IPO for individual investors, according to Bloomberg. JPMorgan is leading the US retail push, and Citigroup is handling retail buyers in places like Japan, Britain and Canada. The same filing warns that AI could pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity. So regular people are being asked to buy a company that says its product could threaten humanity, with no real vote on how it's run. Anthropic's answer is that this is the whole point. The structure is built to keep Wall Street from pressuring it into cutting corners on safety. The trustees have no financial stake in the company. Google and Meta gave their founders control and still made shareholders rich. And every buyer gets all of this in writing before they buy. But Zuckerberg's control comes from shares he owns, so when Meta's stock falls, he loses money too. Anthropic's 2 control shares can't lose anything. Anyone buying this IPO is paying full price to hand control to 7 founders and 5 trustees. They're desperate for money and they don't care about your money.

🚨 TAIWAN IS TAKING EMERGENCY ACTION TO STOP ITS STOCK MARKET FROM CRASHING. The AI selloff has become so severe that Taiwan is now restricting short selling and preparing a $15 BILLION emergency fund to support its stock market. And the numbers are alarming. • The TAIEX crashed over 12% last week, losing 5,510 points. • On Friday alone, the index plunged as much as 9%, recording its biggest intraday point drop in history. • Nearly $186 BILLION was wiped out from Taiwan's listed stocks by Friday's close. • Foreign investors sold roughly $16 BILLION in Taiwanese shares in just five trading days. • TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker, fell 4.46% in Taiwan on Friday, after its U.S.-listed shares crashed 10.78% the previous day. The selling has become so aggressive that Taiwan's government is stepping in. Starting Monday, November 9: 1. The daily short selling limit for borrowed shares will be cut from 30% to just 3% of a stock's average trading volume. 2. Minimum short selling margin requirements will jump from 90% to 130%. 3. Authorities have authorized a $15 BILLION stabilization fund to support stocks if necessary. Companies are also being encouraged to buy back their own shares. But what's concerning is that this is happening despite TSMC reporting some of its strongest financial results ever. Its latest quarterly revenue jumped 41% to $46.7 BILLION, with a massive 66.4% gross margin. Yet investors are still aggressively selling semiconductor stocks as fears grow over the future of AI spending. TSMC's U.S.-listed shares did recover 6.33% on Friday, but the broader market has suffered enormous losses. Taiwan is one of the most important countries in the global semiconductor supply chain. If the AI selloff continues, the damage could spread far beyond Taiwan, affecting chipmakers, equipment suppliers and companies investing hundreds of billions in AI infrastructure. The fact that Taiwan is already preparing emergency market support shows just how serious this global AI selloff has become.

The story keeps getting crazier. To recap everything that has been reported so far: - The US intelligence community discovered that Jensen Huang, the CEO of the largest company in the world, was sleeping with Alice Huang, a Chinese spy and an executive at Megaspeed. (FT) - Multiple independent investigations have concluded that Megaspeed is likely a Chinese cutout, which helps Chinese companies access AI chips or circumvent export controls. (NYT and Bloomberg) - The US intelligence community also concluded that Alice Huang’s goal was to convince Jensen to lobby the U.S. government to loosen export controls on advanced AI chips. (NYT) - The intelligence community relayed this information to “a small group of top US government officials” earlier this year. (FT) - Over the last year, Jensen Huang has repeatedly lobbied the U.S. government to loosen export controls on advanced chips. @BISgov has done so, not only by permitting the export of H200 chips to China, but also not enforcing export controls that would have required a license for exports of the most advanced Blackwell chips to Megaspeed and Southeast Asia. - Although @CommerceGov leadership was presumably briefed on this information by the U.S. intelligence community, @BISgov has taken no actions to tighten controls on Megaspeed or Southeast Asia. - Megaspeed remains a preferred cloud partner of Nvidia, and continues to receive Nvidia Blackwell chips despite employing a Chinese spy who reportedly is romantically engaged with the CEO of Nvidia. - Tens of billions of dollars worth of AI chips have been exported to Southeast Asia this year alone, and Malaysia and Singapore are now two of the four largest importers of AI chips in the world. What is going on here??? We need answers. The question of who gets the most advanced AI chips in the world is literally the defining strategic question of our time. And not only does it seem like the MSS may be directly influencing the debate on export controls in the United States, but also @CommerceGov is refusing to listen to the warnings of the IC on this issue. What is a POSSIBLE good explanation for why Megaspeed is still receiving chips? Why is there not a license requirement for AI chip shipments to all of Southeast Asia? This is beyond strange at this point. The fallout from this story will be massive. Obviously, the motivations underpinning Nvidia’s policy views opposing export controls must now all be questioned. But also, how did @BISgov sit on this information and has still taken no actions? We need answers.