An analysis based on OpenAI's and Anthropic's current valuations suggests ~$370B of philanthropic assets tied to the two AI companies could soon become liquid
AI is about to generate hundreds of billions in new philanthropic funding. We have a huge amount of work to do to make the most of it.
Nan's SubstackNan Ransohoff
Context & Ripple Effects
OpenAI’s nonprofit has described a structure in which a public-benefit corporation runs commercial operations while the nonprofit pursues work in health care, education, and science. That makes the value of stakes connected to its commercial success consequential beyond founders and conventional investors.
The related coverage shows OpenAI and Anthropic dominating the revenue captured by leading AI startups as their valuations have risen sharply. The analysis extends that concentration story to charitable capital: a large share of potential new philanthropic resources is tied to two companies’ valuations and eventual liquidity.
First-order effects
Philanthropic assets associated with OpenAI and Anthropic would become far more valuable on paper under the cited valuations, giving the relevant charitable organizations a much larger potential funding base once those holdings can be converted to cash.
The timing and usable size of that funding remain contingent on liquidity and on the governance and asset-management decisions surrounding the holdings; a valuation alone does not create deployable grant capital.
Second-order effects
Organizations working in the health, education, and science areas OpenAI has identified could face a prospective new source of large-scale funding, while competing funders and nonprofits may adjust their own priorities to a potentially concentrated new capital pool.
The two companies’ financing, valuation, and eventual exit paths become relevant not only to private investors but also to the planning horizons of philanthropic entities tied to their equity.
Third-order effects
If AI-company value continues to accrue mainly to a small number of leaders, philanthropy could become another channel through which the sector’s concentration shapes public-interest agendas, alongside commercial AI investment.
The key structural question is whether these assets are governed and liquidated in ways that create durable, diversified charitable capacity rather than leaving funding levels highly exposed to private-market valuation cycles.
The trend: AI’s rapid private-value creation is increasingly being linked to nonprofit and public-benefit funding models, making ownership structure and liquidity as important as headline valuations.
“We're short thousands of ‘philanthropic startups’ and the talent to run them” If you're thinking about worthwhile causes to spend your time on, this is certainly one of them. Lever is incredible long. To invoke another Nan'ism, appoint yourself a GM of it and go!
Excellent essay from Nan on the coming wave of AI-era philanthropy and the latent opportunity in billions of dollars of newly created wealth flowing toward public goods. Her central case: what if we modeled public goods funding more like Silicon Valley's startup ecosystem? What
Intense vertigo thinking about @nanransohoff's numbers. Based on current pledges/valuations, AI philanthropic giving would saturate an additional 300+ Arc Institutes, i.e. an extra 80K employees. Or 5,000 Institutes for Progress, demanding 200K employees! https://nanransohoff.sub…
New blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today's valuation. Anthropic's seven co-founders have pledged to give away
One of the most important and under appreciated trends in the world right now. 1. 100s of billions of dollars will soon be available to solve big problems (making the world resilient to ASI, ending factory farming, etc). 2. The projects and organizations which will turn
Great report! I've learned a lot since I started my foundation 4 years ago and I'm so impressed by how folks like @patrickc have built philanthropic endeavors that have the hallmarks of high-performing startups. We need these now more than ever https://nanransohoff.substack.com/ …
Within ~2 years, there might be >0.5 Manhattan Projects worth of philanthropic $$$ to spend on the biggest challenges, like cyber or biodefense. @nanransohoff is right: the hard part is finding enough good organizations to spend the $. You should build one!
Characteristically great post from Nan. Most people are really sleeping on the importance of the OpenAI Foundation - it's already displaced Gates as the biggest foundation in the country by assets. [image]
We are entering a new era where the binding constraint on philanthropic startups is no longer funding. The scarce factors are good ideas & the talent who can execute on them. Now is the time for entrepreneurial people to start new organizations that create public goods. [image]
Will this wave of philanthropy support open-source, open-weight, sovereign AI? Or will it try to enforce “AI safety” and work with governments to control what people can use? Probably one of the most important questions of our time Sadly I think the latter
This is an excellent and motivating read. — Three big things I've learned since I left academia and moved to the grant-making side (at Arnold Ventures) 3 years ago: …
The answer to this strikes me as obvious: “yes.” Presumably OP is not saying, “this wealth should be spent on Porsches and Pateks instead of being spent on philanthropy!” Rather she seems to be hinting that the government should expropriate this wealth and spend it on <?????>.
I think there's a threshold question here that isn't being asked, which is whether this scale of philanthropy is desirable in a democracy to begin with