From Adult Film Entrepreneurship to the AI Throne: The Astonishing Rise of Anthropic's "First Lady"

Camilla Clark has never held a formal position at Anthropic, but she may be the most special person in the core of this company.

She is the wife of CEO Dario Amodei and one of his most important personal advisors. Dario rarely listens to opinions outside the core circle, with one Anthropic investor even describing him as "more like a religious leader than a CEO." And in this very small circle, apart from his sister Daniela and a few co-founders, Clark has been a long-standing presence by his side.

But if you rewind the clock by a dozen years, her life had almost no connection to AI.

Clark comes from a blue-collar family in Reno, Nevada, and started working in the plumber's union at the age of 14. Later, she went to the Bay Area to study architecture, sold high-end office furniture, and then decided to start her own business.

Her first venture was in the adult film industry.

In 2009, Clark founded Eddice with the intention of producing high-quality adult films specifically for women. Adult content was difficult to secure investment for, so she had to look for money everywhere. In 2011, she even met with Jeffrey Epstein, who had already pleaded guilty to charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor, and sent him the film script in the hopes of securing investment.

Epstein did not invest.

The project ultimately did not take off. But Clark quickly moved on to her next venture.

This time she targeted women's healthcare, planning to open high-end clinics in New York and Los Angeles with an annual fee of up to $20,000. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt invested in her, and a Princeton biophysics Ph.D. named Dario Amodei became her advisor.

It was during this time that the two of them met.

The healthcare venture also did not go far. Clark then moved on to the then-popular gesture recognition startup Leap Motion, where she served as a revenue lead and met Mira Murati, who later became a key executive at OpenAI.

After that, Dario's life suddenly began to accelerate.

He joined OpenAI, then in 2020, departed with his sister and a group of core colleagues to found Anthropic. While Clark herself did not start a new venture, she began to appear on a larger stage: by Dario's side.

Just as Anthropic was founded, she tried to do something even bigger.

She wanted to establish a fund.

It was to be called the "Mother of AGI."

Clark wanted to use it to invest in Anthropic and other AI companies, aiming to raise billions of dollars in the long term. However, one of Anthropic's co-founders was concerned about a potential conflict of interest due to her relationship with Dario and did not accept the proposal.

The fund didn't materialize, but her most important relationship had already brought something valuable to Anthropic.

It was Clark who introduced Dario to Eric Schmidt. Schmidt subsequently made a direct investment in Anthropic, becoming one of the company's earliest and most significant investors. Most dramatically, before Clark started dating Dario, she had a brief romantic relationship with Schmidt.

Over a decade later, as Anthropic became one of the world's most prominent AI companies, Clark still held no formal role.

However, she was involved in Dario's personal security, discussed his public image, managed the couple's investments, and helped screen the startup projects presented to them. From Davos to Silicon Valley, and then to meetings with French President Macron, she appeared more and more frequently by Dario's side.

Her network of relationships extended all the way from Silicon Valley to Washington.

Clark became friends with Ivanka Trump. Shortly after Dario and the Trump administration had a heated clash over AI policy at the Pentagon, the two even flew to Florida to meet Ivanka and Jared Kushner, discussing the possibility of Kushner's investment firm investing in Anthropic.

Looking back at Clark's two decades, it's hard to simply categorize her as a "CEO's wife."

Adult films, women's health, Leap Motion, Mira Murati, Eric Schmidt, Anthropic, Ivanka Trump.

She kept changing roles and kept entering new circles.

Today, she is not an executive at Anthropic, is not on the board, and doesn't even have a formal company business card.

But she sat next to Dario Amodei.

At a company where the CEO is described by investors as a "cult leader," this may be closer to power than any title.

The Information: Anthropic's First Lady Took Winding Road to the Top