The Download

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Anthropic

TL;DR: Among the eye-popping numbers in Anthropic’s now-public IPO filing are some genuinely weird details, including a literal handful of very important customers, a strange corporate structure, and a secret line of succession that the Roy kids would kill for.

What happened: Anthropic is gearing up for what could be the biggest IPO ever in a few weeks, and most of what’s in the filing was expected (we’ve covered it here). But the hefty document, which mentions “revenue” about 460 times and “profit” just three (make of that what you will), has a few surprises:

• Only two companies made it onto Anthropic’s list of main rivals—OpenAI and Google (sorry, Meta, SpaceX, and Microsoft).
• A big chunk of its revenue this year (about 25%) came from just five customers through September, and many of them could cut back their spending at any point.
• An estimated 5% to 7% of its revenue during that time was from customers who violated its terms, including by using distillation (training an AI model on a rival model’s output). Anthropic is cutting them off, which could slow growth, it warned.

One share to rule them all: Who gets to steer one of the world’s most powerful AI companies once it goes public? Mostly its seven co-founders, who Anthropic says (four times in its filing) are “distinctly equipped to be stewards of our mission.” And their control is set up in an unusual way—the company is issuing a single special share to an entity called the Anthropic Founder LLC (controlled by the seven of them), which will have 50.1% of the voting power. That means they will always have the biggest say in major decisions put in front of investors, even if they sell every other share they own.

Heir apparent: It gets even stranger: If a co-founder steps away, is incapacitated, or is removed, the power goes down a secret line of succession. Each co-founder has a ranked, confidential list of up to 10 heirs, who are approved by five of the other six founders. The company’s board can ask them to reconsider, but cannot veto their picks. The first eight candidates must be current or former employees at Anthropic or a nonprofit, but there are no rules for the last two spots (yes, theoretically, one could be you).

Bottom line: Anthropic is going public with its financials, but if investors want to have a deciding vote in how the company runs, they’ll need to get on a co-founder’s secret list first. —LC

      

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How to stop apps from tracking you

Halloweekend is here, and you realized your costume isn’t warm enough, so you made the fatal error of looking at a puffer jacket in a shopping app. Now, the jacket is haunting every other app on your phone, and your Instagram feed is suddenly 40% puffers and 60% your friends announcing their engagement.

Much of that comes down to tracking: An app takes what it knows about you and matches it with what other companies’ apps and websites know about you, so advertisers can target you with ads. Here’s how to make yourself much harder to follow.

On iPhone: Go to Settings → Privacy & Security → Tracking → toggle off Allow Apps to Request to Track. In the popup, choose Ask Apps to Stop Tracking. That will deny every future tracking request automatically and cancel the permission for any app you previously said yes to.

On Android: Go to Settings → Privacy → Privacy Controls → Ads → tap Delete advertising ID and confirm.

The bad news is that you’ll still see as many ads as you used to. The good news is it’ll stop feeling like Big Brother is watching. —LC

If you have a tech tip or life hack you just can’t live without, fill out this form and you may see it featured in a future edition.

The Zeitbyte

Bet you didn’t predict this

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

Picture this unappetizing scene: After a delicious meal, you break open a fortune cookie expecting to see a very hazy message about your future. Instead, what stares back at you is an unmistakable ad for Polymarket.

A handful of diners online report that they’ve recently found such sponsored “fortunes” inside their complimentary dessert—not only robbing people of a forecast about their own lives, but also adding to the growing fatigue around these sites’ marketing tactics. Ads for these betting sites have been showing up all over TV and social media, and now, apparently, they’re in the very food you eat. (Coming soon: a Polymarket-sponsored message that magically appears in your alphabet soup.)

To make matters worse, this isn’t even the first time a company has violated the sanctity of the post-meal prophecy with a sales pitch. An ad agency called OpenFortune sells branded fortune cookie slips to restaurants, and though we don’t know if it’s behind this latest Polymarket campaign, its previous clients include FTX and a potpourri of gambling sites. There’s always reason to be skeptical of a fortune promising big money—but that probably goes double if the message comes with a brand logo and QR code. —WK

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• Microsoft is offering buyouts to 60,000 employees—about a quarter of its workforce—but those who stay could still face layoffs anyway.
• We’re living in The Fast and the Furious era with a cyberpunk twist: Highway heists of tech cargo are way up this year—and there’s a lot of hacking involved.
• Flock’s CEO had some…questionable things to say to a crowd of police officers last week, per leaked audio—like hinting the backlash against the company isn’t real.
• Oh, did you think your Reels watch time was actually a little too low? Instagram has a new feature that could get those numbers up.
• Imagine having to interview again for the job you already have to prove you know AI. That’s what this popular email provider is requiring of its staff.
• Cops are using AI to tip them off to potential criminal activity—and it’s already led to a bunch of head-scratching police stops about “suspicious travel patterns.”

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This time last week...

Readers’ most-clicked story was about Spotify rolling out a very annoying new feature to curb account sharing…and skipping it could get you restricted for a year.