Ex-Google CEO Owns Huge Stake in AI Startup Anthropic

Eric Schmidt, who was Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011, made a smart bet. In 2021, he invested tens of millions of dollars in Anthropic, an AI startup, when it was valued at just $461 million. Now, Bloomberg reports he owns about 1% of the company. That might not sound like much, but Anthropic is expected to go public soon, and some estimates value it at $2 trillion. If that happens, Schmidt's 1% could be worth $20 billion—nearly doubling his already huge fortune.

To put that in perspective, Anthropic's CEO and co-founder, Dario Amodei, owns only about 2% of the company. So Schmidt, an outside investor, holds half as much as the person running the show. That's unusual and shows how much early investors can gain. Schmidt has been investing in AI and tech through various funds since leaving Google. Besides Anthropic, he's backed other AI startups like Mistral and Reflection AI.

Why should you care? Because this is a window into how the AI boom is creating enormous wealth for a small group of people. When a company like Anthropic goes public, early investors can become billionaires overnight. That might not affect your daily life directly, but it signals that AI is not just a tech trend—it's a massive financial wave. It also raises questions about who controls these powerful AI systems and who profits from them.

The catch? These valuations are speculative. Anthropic might not go public this year, or its value could be much lower. The $2 trillion figure is a top-end estimate, and the actual number could be far less. Still, even a fraction of that would be a huge win for Schmidt. And as AI continues to grow, we'll likely see more stories like this—early investors cashing in big while the rest of us watch.