You Use Claude Every Day. But Do You Know Who Built It?

A note before we start: I've done my best to research and verify the information in this piece, drawing on publicly available sources including Wikipedia, the founders' own websites and reporting from Bloomberg, Forbes and the Financial Times. As with any profile of this kind, details - particularly around personal background and financial figures - can vary between sources or change over time. I'd always encourage you to follow the links and read the primary sources for yourself.

If you're reading this, there's a reasonable chance you used Claude today. Maybe you used it to write something, build something or think something through. It has become, for a growing number of founders, the tool that sits at the centre of how they work.

But how much do you actually know about the people who built it?

This isn't an admiration piece. It's simply the story of two siblings from San Francisco who walked away from the world's most influential AI company on a point of principle - and built something that is now shaping the global conversation about what AI can and cannot do. Given how many of us rely on their product every day, it seems worth knowing.

Who is Dario Amodei?

Dario Amodei is the CEO and co-founder of Anthropic. Born in San Francisco in 1983, he earned a doctorate in biophysics from Princeton University and went on to work at Google Brain as a senior research scientist. In 2016 he joined OpenAI, where he rose to Vice President of Research and played a central role in developing GPT-2 and GPT-3 - the models that laid the groundwork for what eventually became ChatGPT. He also co-invented reinforcement learning from human feedback, a foundational technique in how modern AI models are trained to behave.

Who is Daniela Amodei?

Daniela Amodei, four years younger than her brother, took a very different path. She studied English Literature, Politics and Music at UC Santa Cruz - no computer science, no physics. She started her career working on a congressional campaign in Pennsylvania, then joined Stripe as an early employee, reportedly helping grow the company from around 40 to 1,200 people. She moved to OpenAI in 2018, eventually becoming VP of Safety and Policy. She is now President of Anthropic.

Two very different backgrounds. One shared concern.

Why they left OpenAI

In December 2020, Dario, Daniela and several colleagues departed OpenAI. The reason, as they have described it in various interviews, was a fundamental difference in how seriously the company was taking AI safety as its models became more powerful. They weren't leaving to slow things down. They were leaving to build something they believed could be both commercially successful and genuinely safe - a combination they felt was no longer being properly prioritised.

In 2021 they founded Anthropic, structured as a public benefit corporation - a legal designation that requires the company to consider social good alongside shareholder returns. Their first funding round raised $124 million. Their flagship product, Claude, followed.

What they've built

The numbers are significant. According to Bloomberg, Anthropic completed a $30 billion Series G funding round in February 2026, valuing the company at $380 billion. Annualised revenue has reportedly surpassed $30 billion. Eight of the Fortune 10 are Claude customers.

Forbes estimates Dario's personal net worth at approximately $7 billion as of early 2026. Daniela's is estimated at around $1.2 billion - not a figure anyone would have predicted from someone who graduated with a degree in English Literature.

In January 2026, according to reporting from multiple outlets, both siblings publicly committed to donating 80% of their personal wealth to charitable causes. The combined philanthropic commitment is estimated at $49 billion.

The stand that made headlines

Earlier this year, the US Department of Defense demanded Anthropic remove contractual restrictions preventing Claude from being used for fully autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. Dario refused.

The Trump administration responded by labelling Anthropic a "supply chain risk" - a designation previously reserved for foreign adversaries like Huawei - and ordered all federal agencies to stop using Claude. Anthropic sued. The case is still in court.

Whatever your view on the rights and wrongs of that situation, it is worth noting: this was a company choosing a legal battle with the US government at precisely the moment it was preparing for one of the most significant IPOs in history.

What comes next

According to Bloomberg and The Information, Anthropic is in early discussions with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley about an IPO targeting October 2026. The raise is expected to exceed $60 billion - which would make it one of the largest technology IPOs in history. No formal filing has been made yet, and timelines can shift.

To put that in context: Dario and Daniela Amodei left OpenAI in 2020 with a shared concern and a plan. Six years later they are preparing to take their company public at a valuation that rivals some of the largest corporations on earth. The tool they built is used by millions of founders, developers and businesses every day - including, in all likelihood, you.

That's the story behind the product in your browser tab.

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