This company will distribute $200 billion to its employees on the condition that they stay on the job

Imagine opening your banking app and seeing $10 million appear, but you can't spend a single cent of it. This is the paradoxical situation that thousands of Anthropic employees will soon experience. This Monday, October 26, 2026, the company officially launched its IPO process by filing its preparatory form S-1. Soon, its shares will trade on Nasdaq under the symbol ANT.

The numbers are dizzying. In its press release, the company mentions a global valuation of between 1,500 and 2,000 billion dollars. This ceiling of 2,000 billion, already whispered during the summer, is however not set in stone. According to the Financial Times, current shareholders are instead counting on a range between 1,500 and 1,750 billion. Regardless, the jump is spectacular: during its last capital increase in May 2026, Anthropic weighed 965 billion dollars, or 863 billion euros.

For the teams, the stakes are monumental. The company, which has experienced meteoric growth from 940 employees at the end of 2024 to 5,300 today, has distributed options and free shares. In total, this theoretical gross jackpot weighs between 200 and 330 billion dollars. Analysts estimate that between 3,000 and 4,200 people will become millionaires on paper.

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Obviously, the distribution of this treasure is very unequal. At the top of the pyramid, a small elite of 50 to 100 star researchers and historic executives, arriving between 2021 and 2023, will sit on more than $100 million per person. Just below, around 1,200 senior engineers and directors recruited between 2023 and early 2025 will hold between 10 and 99 million each. The vast majority, 2,500 to 3,000 employees in support functions or hired in 2025 and 2026, will navigate between $1 and $9 million. Only the approximately 1,000 people who arrived in less than a year will remain below the million mark.

However, the lucky ones will have to stay in the company to unlock their rights. The $300 million promised to 2024 recruits, for example, is smoothed over four years. The entry into the stock market will only make liquid the shares already acquired through seniority. Then, you will have to wait: a ban of 30 to 180 days will apply, a floating period during which the share price will have plenty of time to rise or fall.

Machine-translated from French