Eric Schmidt’s path to a $20 billion Anthropic windfall began with an introduction from his ex, Cami Clark—now Dario Amodei’s wife
Source: Fortune ·
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt met Dario Amodei through Cami Clark years before Anthropic existed, and became one of its earliest backers
From the source
It pays to stay on good terms with your ex in Silicon Valley. Just ask former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, whose early investment in Anthropic could soon be worth billions as the AI company prepares to go public as soon as next month. People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg Schmidt owns a 1% stake in the AI lab, which could be worth as much as $20 billion if Anthropic goes public at its $2 trillion target. Schmidt’s connection to Anthropic came through Cami Clark, the woman he dated for three years starting in 2011 before she started dating Dario Amodei in 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported. Clark introduced Schmidt to Amodei—whom she later married—and Schmidt visited the couple’s apartment in 2018, three years before Amodei co-founded Anthropic. Schmidt then joined Anthropic’s earliest investors in its $124 million Series A funding round in 2021, with sources telling Bloomberg his investment was in the tens of millions. Schmidt’s investment came when Anthropic was valued at…