Why She Made the List
Anthropic’s Claude models have become central to United States national security infrastructure: the company holds a $200 million Department of Defense contract, and its Claude Gov model is in classified use across multiple US intelligence agencies through a partnership with Palantir and Amazon Web Services.
Amodei leads the operational and commercial side of the company, overseeing strategy, partnerships, talent and culture, while the company’s research mission centres on building AI systems that are safe, interpretable and steerable.
In September 2023 Amodei was named among Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI, reflecting her standing as one of the most consequential figures shaping the governance and safety of advanced artificial intelligence.
Summary Bio
Daniela Amodei is Co-Founder and President of Anthropic, the AI safety company behind the Claude series of large language models, which she co-founded in 2021 alongside her brother Dario Amodei and fellow former OpenAI researchers.
Anthropic is structured as a Public Benefit Corporation and as of February 2026 carries a valuation of approximately $380 billion, making it one of the most significant private technology companies in the world.
Before co-founding Anthropic, Amodei served as Vice President of Safety and Policy at OpenAI, where she oversaw safety evaluations and policy frameworks during the development of GPT-2 and GPT-3. Prior to that she held operational leadership roles at Stripe.