Schmidt Positioned for Massive Windfall as Anthropic Races Toward $2 Trillion IPO

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt stands to gain one of the largest personal windfalls from an artificial-intelligence startup's market debut, courtesy of an early bet on Anthropic. Schmidt owns approximately 1% of the AI company through a tens-of-millions-of-dollar investment made during Anthropic's Series A fundraising round in 2021, when the company was valued at $461 million. With Anthropic now preparing for an initial public offering targeting November 2026 at a potential valuation between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, Schmidt's stake could be worth roughly $15 billion to $20 billion—delivering returns of more than 4,300 times his original investment.