Former Netflix CEO Reed Hastings appointed to Anthropic's board of directors
Reed Hastings
, the former CEO and current chairman of streaming giant
Netflix
, has been appointed to the board of directors of AI startup
Anthropic
, the company said in a
blog post
on Wednesday.
Hastings has been part of the boards of Facebook (now Meta), Microsoft, and Bloomberg. He had served as CEO of Netflix since its inception and stepped down in 2023.
Anthropic's large language model (LLM) Claude competes with OpenAI's
ChatGPT
and Google's Gemini. The company last received $4 billion in funding from Amazon.
Hastings recently gave $50 million to Bowdoin College to create a research initiative on AI and humanity. The programme explores how AI will change work, relationships, and education while developing ethical guidelines for its use. This objective aligns with Anthropic's focus.
Hastings was appointed to the board by Anthropic's Long Term Benefit Trust.
"The Long Term Benefit Trust appointed Reed because his impressive leadership experience, deep philanthropic work, and commitment to addressing AI's societal challenges make him uniquely qualified to guide Anthropic at this critical juncture in
AI development
," said Buddy Shah, chair of Anthropic's Long Term Benefit Trust.
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'Anthropic is very optimistic about the AI benefits for humanity, but is also very aware of the economic, social, and safety challenges,' Hastings said in a statement. 'I'm joining Anthropic's board because I believe in their approach to AI development, and to help humanity progress,' he added.
Meanwhile, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned that AI could
eliminate nearly half of entry-level white-collar jobs
within five years. He urged consumers and US lawmakers to prepare for significant
job cuts
, according to Axios. Amodei also criticised the government and other AI companies for downplaying the risk of widespread job losses across sectors such as technology, finance, law, and consulting.
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