Meet the Canadian dropout set to reap a multibillion-dollar windfall from Anthropic's IPO

This section is Presented This section was produced by the editorial department. The client was not given the opportunity to put restrictions on the content or review it prior to publication. by BDC Since co-founding Anthropic in 2021, Christopher Olah has served as its interpretability research lead, tackling the technical questions of why its AI models act the way they do. Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images Article content Among Anthropic PBC’s seven co-founders set to reap a multibillion-dollar windfall as it goes public is Canadian Christopher Olah, a machine learning researcher who got his start working for and then dropping out of the University of Toronto, alongside a couple of early stints at Environment Canada and an Ottawa tech company . Sign In or Create an Account Email Address Continue or View more offers Article content In 2021, Olah and six of his OpenAI OpCo LLC colleagues took a gamble by leaving the company, which was then a rising artificial intelligence lab, and launching their own venture, Anthropic, to focus on what they called ethical and safe AI. Article content We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or tap here to see other videos from our team . We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or tap here to see other videos from our team . Play Video Article content Article content That bet is about to pay off as Anthropic plans to go public in what could be the world’s largest-ever initial public offering (IPO). Its seven co-founders, who each hold Anthropic stakes valued at US$15.5 billion at the time of its last fundraise, are primed to collect even more post-IPO and take controlling stakes in a company hurtling toward a US$1-trillion-plus valuation. Article content Top Stories Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns. There was an error, please provide a valid email address. Sign Up By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Article content That’s a far cry from when Olah was struggling to fit in at elementary school in Toronto, but he excelled academically in high school, his mother Frances Zomer said in a 2012 CNBC interview. Article content As a kid, Olah shunned sports, declared himself a vegetarian at age four and obsessed over obscure concepts such as black holes, while his sixth-grade principal said he would be “lucky” to graduate high school, Zomer said. Article content He later attended Abelard School, a selective private school, where he ended up auditing University of Toronto courses by Grade 10 and writing its ecological modelling software. Article content After dropping out of university in 2011 to help a friend beat terrorism charges, Olah made his Silicon Valley debut. Article content Article content In June 2012, Olah secured a US$100,000 Thiel Fellowship, funded by PayPal Holdings Inc. founder Peter Thiel , to research 3D printing. That opened doors for Olah because being validated by a third party made it “much easier to do unusual things,” he said in an interview on the 80,000 Hours podcast in 2021. Article content Read More Anthropic flags Canadian lawsuits, data centre risks in highly anticipated IPO filing Anthropic begins countdown to IPO with prospectus filing Article content His research attracted the attention of the Bay Area’s largest tech labs, and he worked from 2014 to 2018 at Google LLC’s AI and deep learning arm, Google DeepMind (then known as Google Brain), where he studied and co-published papers on neural networks and advanced to a research scientist role. Article content Olah’s work on mechanistic interpretability, a field of study that seeks to explain how neural networks learn, operate and produce outputs, landed him a job at OpenAI as its technical lead for the interpretability team from 2018 to 2020. Article content Since co-founding Anthropic in 2021, he has served as its interpretability research lead, tackling the technical questions of why its AI models act the way they do. Anthropic makes advanced large language models from Claude to the restricted Mythos . Trending The Bank of Canada will regret its recent rate hike: Rosenberg Economy Canada's economy flatlines for second month in a row Economy Meet the Canadian dropout set to reap a multibillion-dollar windfall from Anthropic's IPO Innovation Posthaste: CPP investing arm warns Canadians underestimate how long retirement could last News RBC to block personal AI agents from access to online banking Banking Article content Olah has also campaigned for AI safety and publicly discussed Anthropic’s mission to make its models moral and virtuous. The company’s cofounders say their overarching goals are to ensure they and AI positively impact the world and all seven have promised to donate 80 per cent of their net worth to charity. Article content In May, Olah, the self-professed former evangelical-Christian-turned-atheist, sat beside Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican during the pontiff’s AI encyclical. The pope called for the “moralization of machines (and) alignment of AI with human values,” and Olah advocated for those outside of tech to keep tabs on AI companies such as Anthropic. Article content “ Every frontier AI lab — including Anthropic — operates inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing,” Olah said at the event. Article content “If we want this technology to go well, it is enormously important that there be people outside those incentives, people who care about things going well and insist on safety … who are willing to be our earnest, thoughtful critics.” Article content • Email: ylau@postmedia.com Article content We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or tap here to see other videos from our team . Play Video Article content Share this article in your social network Share this Story : Financial Post Copy Link Email X Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr