New York City Comptroller Mark Levine Talks Anthropic IPO

Anthropic

Across the shows: 42 speakers in other episodes, 22 bullish and 42 bearish calls, past 30 days

• Mark Levine · New York City Office of the ComptrollerUncertain

  Anthropic should delay its IPO to address safety risks before public shareholder pressure builds.

  Levine argues Anthropic's S-1 itself describes the technology as a potential existential threat to humanity and does not claim to have solved that problem, which makes an IPO risky for investors. He says an IPO would be the most all-consuming thing for leadership, distracting from safety work, and that public-company pressure for growth and profits would keep pushing against it. He wants the company to do the safety work, mitigate risk and let investors know it can be confident before listing. He says a catastrophic safety incident after listing would be terrible for the stock and could reverberate through markets, while acknowledging the counterargument that delaying could itself trigger a market problem if valuations are frothy. He is not opposed to frontier AI companies going public eventually, only to doing it when it is safe. He lacks answers on safety tripwires, capability thresholds for bio and cyber risks, and whether any governance structure could stop a release under competitive pressure.

  “An IPO is about the most all consuming thing that corporate leadership could go through. It will dominate their lives. It will distract from the safety work.”at 1:25

AI regulation & safety

• Mark Levine · New York City Office of the Comptroller

  The White House AI accord is a step forward but nonbinding, with no timeline, leaving key safety gaps.

  Levine acknowledges the White House accord as progress, noting that a few years ago it would have been seen as a big deal. He argues it is not enough because it is nonbinding and has no timeline, so the company could take years to implement it. He says it leaves out key questions other investors are asking, including what safety tripwires exist, what capability thresholds are being watched for bio and cyber risks, and whether any governance structure would let someone halt a release despite competitive pressure.

  “We have the White House accord a step forward... But it is nonbinding. There's no timeline. So what? They have ten years to implement it? And it leaves a lot out”at 2:51

IPOs, M&A & deal activity

• Mark Levine · New York City Office of the Comptroller

  Index providers' fast-tracked inclusion of new IPOs like SpaceX sets a terrible precedent for investors.

  Levine says index providers, including the Russell index his pension funds track, have dropped the old seasoning period and float thresholds for newly listed companies, and the SpaceX listing set a terrible precedent. Previously investors could watch volatility, check whether insiders were dumping shares, and assess the company before it entered indexes. Now a company could be listed within days or about five business days, with no time to assess concerns such as safety. Because so many investors now hold passive index strategies, they are pushed to buy in without that scrutiny. Levine says his pension funds are pushing back hard on the index providers.

  “What they did with SpaceX now is set a terrible precedent. Remember we used to have a period of seasoning? ... That's thrown out the window now and it could potentially be days, business days, like five business days before this is listed.”at 5:15