Anthropic told prospective IPO investors in its S-1/A, filed on 2 November 2026, that “Certain of our competitors have directly solicited, and continue to directly solicit, our employees.” The same filing says there was approximately $32.3 billion of unrecognized stock-based compensation expense related to RSUs as of 30 September 2026.
This is the first follow-up to our tracker of staff moves, 4 Anthropic Staff Posted Exits in 12 Days; 2 Joined OpenAI. It sets out what the filing says about losing key people, how staff equity vests, and what that equity costs. The filing does not name any of the people in the tracker.
Business Pill · The Model and the Harness
A short Business Engineer explainer on the difference between an AI model and the harness around it. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about the filing or the people in this piece.
The key insight: Anthropic’s S-1/A says rivals directly solicit its employees and that losing certain key people could accelerate obligations under some supplier agreements; it also reports approximately $32.3 billion of unrecognized RSU expense, 9.9 times its stock-based compensation expense in the first nine months of 2026 by our arithmetic.
The S-1/A says competition for staff “is exceptionally intense and has escalated significantly in recent periods, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area”. It adds: “A small number of well-capitalized AI labs, large technology companies, and new market entrants compete aggressively for a relatively fixed supply of individuals with the requisite expertise.”
The filing says former employees “are also generally able to join or found competing companies immediately following their departure”. Elsewhere it states that “certain of our employees have left and others may leave to work for such competitors.” It does not name the competitors.
The company also says it has “in the past, and may in the future, be” subject to claims “relating to the solicitation or hiring of employees, including allegations that such hires violated non-compete, non-solicitation, intellectual property, confidentiality, or other employment-related obligations.” It warns that its cash and equity awards “may not be as effective as in the past.”
Anthropic’s stock-based compensation expense per quarter, Q1 2025 to Q3 2026, $ million. The filing reports approximately $32.3 billion of unrecognized stock-based compensation expense related to RSUs as of 30 September 2026. 10x is our arithmetic. Data: Anthropic S-1/A, 2 November 2026.
The Key-Personnel Risk and the Supplier Clause
The filing names “the loss of key personnel, including members of our founding team and senior management team, and key engineering, research, product development, marketing, and sales personnel” as a risk. It says this risk “may be heightened as we continue to scale and mature as an organization”.
One sentence ties people to contracts: “under certain of our agreements with suppliers, the loss of certain key personnel could accelerate our obligations or otherwise trigger adverse consequences under such agreements.” The filing does not name the suppliers or the people those agreements cover.
The $32.3 Billion of Stock Pay Still to Be Expensed
The S-1/A says: “there was approximately $32.3 billion of total unrecognized stock-based compensation expense related to RSUs. Of that amount, $8.2 billion relates to RSUs for which the service-based vesting condition had been satisfied or partially satisfied.” The remaining $24.1 billion relates to RSUs whose service condition was not satisfied, to be recognized over a weighted-average period of approximately 2.0 years, the filing says.
The filing says the performance-based vesting condition applies to “a significant portion of our outstanding RSUs” and “will be satisfied upon the effectiveness of the registration statement”. It says expense will rise “in particular in the quarter in which this offering is completed”. By our arithmetic, $32.3 billion is 9.9 times the $3.3 billion of total stock-based compensation expense in the first nine months of 2026.
Stock Pay per Employee, by Our Arithmetic
The filing reports stock-based compensation expense of $3,255 million for the nine months to 30 September 2026, against revenue of $33,242 million. By our arithmetic that is 9.8% of revenue, down from 23.2% a year earlier, and 5.5 times the $591 million of the same period in 2025.
The quarterly expense rose from $105 million in the first quarter of 2025 to $1,070 million in the third quarter of 2026, 10.2 times by our arithmetic. Headcount grew from approximately 940 at the end of 2024 to approximately 5,300 on 30 September 2026, the filing says.
Divided across the 5,300 staff, the nine-month expense comes to about $614,000 per employee, by our arithmetic. That is an average across all staff using the 30 September headcount, not what any person received.
Lockups and Restrictive Covenants
Directors, officers and holders of substantially all of the company’s capital stock agreed that, “for a period of 180 days after the date of this prospectus”, they will not sell or otherwise dispose of its securities without consent, the filing says.
For its named executive officers, the filing describes a standard agreement with “employee non-solicitation (during employment and for 12 months post-termination), customer non-solicitation (during employment), confidentiality (perpetual)”. Their employment is “at-will”. The excerpt lists no non-compete for these officers.
The company says it intends to use offering proceeds for purposes including “hiring and retention of highly skilled personnel”, and to satisfy tax withholding obligations on the settlement of certain RSUs.
The Context
Our tracker counts four people who posted that they left Anthropic between 24 October and 5 November, two of whom posted that they joined OpenAI. Separately, Polymarket’s price for an Anthropic IPO before the end of 2026 fell from 90.1% to 77.1% on 5 November, as we reported in Polymarket Odds of an Anthropic IPO This Year Fall to 77%. We draw no link between the two.
As we read the filing, the supplier sentence ties certain individuals to contract terms, and the filing names neither the suppliers nor the people.
As we read the numbers, most of the equity Anthropic has granted has not yet reached its income statement: $32.3 billion is unrecognized against $3.3 billion expensed in nine months.
As we read the covenants, the quoted officer agreement restricts soliciting employees for 12 months after leaving, and the filing says former employees are generally able to join competitors immediately.
Anthropic PBC, Form S-1/A, 2 November 2026
“Certain of our competitors have directly solicited, and continue to directly solicit, our employees.”
Three Implications
FOR ANTHROPIC The filing says expense from RSUs will increase in the quarter the offering is completed.
FOR STAFF EQUITY Insiders and holders of substantially all its stock agreed to a 180-day market standoff, the filing says.
FOR THIS TRACKER Each move is still counted only when the person posts it or a company confirms it.
The framework says: “Model capability is exponential; product capability is approximately linear.”
As we read it, the people who turn model capability into product are the linear part, which is consistent with the filing listing key product personnel as a risk. The framework predates this filing and does not discuss it.
What Is Not Established
The filing does not say who the soliciting competitors are, which suppliers’ agreements contain the key-personnel clause, or which people count as key personnel. It does not give the stock awards held by any person in our tracker, and nothing in it explains why any of them left. The per-employee figure is an average, not anyone’s pay.
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Anthropic’s own filing says rivals directly solicit its staff and that the loss of certain key people could accelerate obligations under some supplier agreements. It also shows $32.3 billion of RSU expense not yet recognized, with a jump due in the quarter the offering is completed.
A note on sourcing. Every quotation and figure attributed to Anthropic comes from its Form S-1/A filed with the SEC on 2 November 2026, read on 5 November 2026. Percentages, multiples and the per-employee average are our own arithmetic from those figures.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
