Hey all, Anthropic cofounder here. I wanted to clarify Anthropic’s position on non-disparagement agreements:
We have never tied non-disparagement agreements to vested equity: this would be highly unusual. Employees or former employees never risked losing their vested equity for criticizing the company.
We historically included standard non-disparagement terms by default in severance agreements, and in some non-US employment contracts. We’ve since recognized that this routine use of non-disparagement agreements, even in these narrow cases, conflicts with our mission. Since June 1st we’ve been going through our standard agreements and removing these terms.
Anyone who has signed a non-disparagement agreement with Anthropic is free to state that fact (and we regret that some previous agreements were unclear on this point). If someone signed a non-disparagement agreement in the past and wants to raise concerns about safety at Anthropic, we welcome that feedback and will not enforce the non-disparagement agreement.
In other words— we’re not here to play games with AI safety using legal contracts. Anthropic’s whole reason for existing is to increase the chance that AI goes well, and spur a race to the top on AI safety.
Some other examples of things we’ve needed to adjust from the standard corporate boilerplate to ensure compatibility with our mission: (1) replacing standard shareholder governance with the Long Term Benefit Trust and (2) supplementing standard risk management with the Responsible Scaling Policy. And internally, we have an anonymous RSP non-compliance reporting line so that any employee can raise concerns about issues like this without any fear of retaliation.
Please keep up the pressure on us and other AI developers: standard corporate best practices won’t cut it when the stakes are this high. Our goal is to set a new standard for governance in AI development. This includes fostering open dialogue, prioritizing long-term safety, making our safety practices transparent, and continuously refining our practices to align with our mission.
We’re not claiming that Anthropic never offered a confidential non-disparagement agreement. What we are saying is: everyone is now free to talk about having signed a non-disparagement agreement with us, regardless of whether there was a non-disclosure previously preventing it. (We will of course continue to honor all of Anthropic’s non-disparagement and non-disclosure obligations, e.g. from mutual agreements.)
If you’ve signed one of these agreements and have concerns about it, please email hr@anthropic.com.