The CEO of Silicon Valley Trillion is a "dual-faced doomsday cult leader"?!
In recent days, Information published a major long-form article that thoroughly exposed Dario Amodei.
After 42 days of interviews with his subordinates, competitors, and investors, journalist Cory Weinberg pieced together a compelling dual persona—
While repeatedly warning that AI could destroy humanity, one is simultaneously pressing the accelerator, betting on the acceleration of the singularity.
Afraid of AI, yet betting big on AI. Which side of Dario Amodei is the real one?
Side A: AI could lead to the extinction of all humanity
Earlier this year, public sentiment toward AI hit rock bottom, with widespread hostility and fear toward the technology reaching its peak.
At a core closed-door meeting at Anthropic, the attending board members recommended:
Anthropic should leverage its remarkable industry influence to launch a public relations "charm offensive," much like Microsoft, Meta, or even Google did in the past.
For example, highlight AI’s immense potential in areas such as discovering new cancer drugs and overcoming rare diseases to benefit humanity.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Dario, seated at one end of the long table, immediately rejected the proposal—
People used to do this in the past, but this time, we're facing a real existential crisis.
The final outcome did not compromise at all; instead, it moved to the opposite extreme.
During the highly anticipated World Cup event, an Anthropic advertisement suddenly flashed a series of dark, oppressive images: a row of cold, dim tombstones appeared in the center of the screen.
Anthropic is suggesting that AI could kill everyone!
Afraid of AI, scared for ten years
Over the past decade, Dario Amodei has consistently maintained a strong focus on safety.
As early as 2017, when the world was still immersed in mobile internet, Dario Amodei warned of the safety risks that AGI could bring.
In 2018, while everyone was celebrating the emerging capabilities of OpenAI’s models, Dario exhibited an almost neurotic sense of caution.
At that time, he strongly pushed forward an out-of-place strict rule despite opposition:
All of OpenAI's core research must undergo a rigorous "information hazard" assessment before publication to prevent technical details from being disclosed to competitors.
This almost excessive caution once left OpenAI colleagues feeling suffocated.
In 2019, Microsoft was preparing to inject $1 billion in emergency funding into OpenAI, which was running out of money.
However, Amodei’s security team forcibly paused this critical funding negotiation for several months.
The reason is—concern that the still-untrained GPT-3 could evolve into an uncontrolled AGI.
At the time, colleagues even privately mocked Dario Amodei’s department as a “priestly class that saw itself as superior and monopolized the truth.”
Computer offline; hand-delivered messages
More interestingly, to maintain secrecy, Dario Amodei rejects all external internet access.
In his San Francisco apartment, he refused to use any computer connected to the internet.
All core memos are completed on a completely air-gapped computer.
After completing it, do not upload to the cloud or send via email—print it as a physical document and personally deliver it to the office to distribute to the team.
This near-paranoid "bunker mentality" peaked in 2020.
Ultimately, due to ideological differences, he left OpenAI with his team to found Anthropic.
In the eyes of the founding team, Altman, in his pursuit of rapid commercialization, is leading humanity toward a cliff.
This trauma coalesced internally at Anthropic into a unique sense of cohesion, with employees even jokingly referring to their extreme vigilance toward their former employer as "Sama Derangement Syndrome."
Today, the sense of alarm within Anthropic confuses outsiders.
Side B: He carries the concept of the singularity in his mind.
Anthropic’s investors have a private saying that has nearly become consensus: “He’s more like a religious leader than a CEO.”
Dario rarely interferes in day-to-day management; salaries, organizational structure, and personnel adjustments are almost entirely entrusted to his sister, Daniela.
As for himself, he turned his gaze into a lighthouse, illuminating every corner of the company.
The last time the spotlight fell on the in-house team of economists, they used rudimentary mathematical models to assess the potential impact of the "singularity":
The slow singularity may contribute only 0.5 percentage points to U.S. economic growth, with employment remaining largely stable; the fast singularity could contribute up to 4 percentage points while significantly increasing unemployment.
After listening, Dario simply said: "That's pretty much what I had in mind."
Employees talk about Dario Amodei as if he were a mystic. “He can see the future,” one said. “He has the singularity in his mind,” another remarked.
His biweekly all-hands meeting is called the "Dario Amodei Vision Trip." During these meetings, he opens a comprehensive document and shares candid opinions on AI, politics, war, and society.
On Slack, he spoke directly and engaged in scholarly discussion as an equal, remaining approachable and inspiring near-religious loyalty.
This leadership style is almost unique in Silicon Valley. Most CEOs are trained to be "growth machines," while Dario is more like a god who has embodied safety as a doctrine.
This unique leadership style has fostered an organizational culture within Anthropic that resembles a "temple."
Genius employees come here not just for million-dollar salaries, but to uphold a shared belief in "saving humanity" in a world corrupted by capital.
Businesses drive employees with KPIs, while temples rely solely on faith.
Annual revenue of $47 billion
Investors fear he doesn't care about money.
On the path to the singularity, Anthropic has created a near-mythical business miracle—
Founded just five years ago and with fewer than 3,000 employees, it is now valued at $965 billion.
Based on a valuation of approximately $4.1 billion in May 2023, the valuation surged to about 235 times its original value in just three years.
This figure has now surpassed Oracle, the database giant that has stood for nearly half a century.
Consider this striking comparison: As of the end of May 2026, Oracle employed approximately 141,000 people, while Anthropic had only 2–3% of that number.
Today, Anthropic has achieved the fastest revenue growth in history.
Yet strangely, the top investors poised to make a fortune in the upcoming IPO looked anything but delighted—they trembled with fear.
What I fear most is that he simply doesn’t care about money.
A seasoned Silicon Valley investor who conducted early research on Anthropic wrote this in his notes.
Another mutual fund manager preparing to heavily invest in its IPO sighed almost pleadingly after the meeting: “Please, can he just stop scaring everyone?”
Keep in mind that across from Dario sat a group of capital giants who control hundreds of billions in funds and are accustomed to measuring everything by growth rates, profits, and valuations.
But what Dario was most eager to discuss with them wasn't Anthropic's business roadmap—it was the probability of AI destroying humanity.
Stepping on the gas while searching for the brake: a high-stakes gamble affecting the fate of all humanity
To prevent AI from destroying the world, we must personally build the most powerful AI—
This is the most chilling paradox about Dario.
Since the train to the "singularity" can no longer be stopped, he would rather grip the steering wheel tightly in his own hands as a "doomsday believer" than hand it over to the "madmen" racing ahead.
Thus, we witnessed one of the most fractured moments in technological history: he was trying to harness a wildly printing money machine using the methods of building a temple.
But the ultimate goal of capital is always endless growth.
As the frenzy of a trillion-dollar market cap converges with ASI, can this "doomsday prophet" still control the very beast he raised?
Believers are gambling, and capital is gambling too.
And all of us have been pulled to this no-escape poker table by him.
Reference materials:
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/dario-amodei-spread-anthropics-religion-stirred-silicon-valley
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-listen-to-the-story-84532929/episode/can-anthropic-win-the-ai-race-276045535/
This article is from the WeChat public account "New Intelligence Yuan," authored by ASI Revelation, edited by David Peach.