Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei says the most important thing he does each day has nothing to do with training AI models or shipping products. Instead, the head of one of the technology industry's most closely watched companies estimates that he devotes nearly half of his working hours to a single priority: company culture.

"I probably spend a third, maybe 40%, of my time making sure the culture of Anthropic is good," Amodei said in an interview on the Dwarkesh Podcast in February. The show, hosted by Dwarkesh Patel, features long-form interviews with figures from across technology and AI.

His comments offer a rare window into how he runs Anthropic, the AI company he co-founded in 2021 with former OpenAI colleagues, which now has 3,500 employees and is set to go public as early as next month in an initial public offering that could reach $2 trillion — potentially surpassing SpaceX's recent $1.77 trillion public debut to become the most valuable of all time.

Strong financials ahead of a possible listing

Ahead of its potential public listing, Anthropic told investors this week that its third-quarter revenue had jumped 50% to $16.8 billion and that the company was profitable on an adjusted basis, the Financial Times reported. Confirmation of the listing's timing and valuation will be among the next milestones to watch for the company.

As Anthropic has expanded and its revenue has skyrocketed, it has become nearly impossible for Amodei to weigh in on every technical and product decision, he said. Rather than dig into the finer details, he has tried to focus on the bigger picture: making sure employees like working for Anthropic, that the company's mission and values are clear, and that all workers are moving toward the same mission instead of against one another — a dynamic he said occurs at other AI companies, which he did not name.

"I think we've done an extraordinarily good job, even if not perfect, of holding the company together, making everyone feel the mission, that we're sincere about the mission, and that everyone has faith that everyone else there is working for the right reason," he said.

The 'Dario Vision Quest'

Key to Amodei's approach to culture are constant communication and extreme sincerity. He said he speaks candidly about his vision for the company at a biweekly all-hands meeting called a "DVQ," short for Dario Vision Quest — a name he initially resisted because of its potential psychedelic connotation, but later accepted.

During these meetings, Amodei stands in front of the entire company with a three- or four-page document and speaks for an hour on topics ranging from product strategy to geopolitics, as well as the broader AI industry. A large fraction of the company attends, either in person or virtually, he said.

Amodei says he speaks plainly with employees, answering questions and avoiding what he calls "corpo speak." He also maintains an active Slack channel where he responds to employee questions and shares his own thoughts about the company throughout the week.

Echoes of 'radical transparency'

Amodei's blunt approach to communication echoes the "radical transparency" leadership style pioneered by Ray Dalio, who founded Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest hedge funds, and who encourages employees to give honest feedback even to senior members of the firm. Dalio argues the method helps improve the company's standards, though some critics have said that allowing a no-holds-barred culture of communication could make employees more closed off.

The culture push comes at a delicate time for Anthropic. Earlier this year, the company updated its Responsible Scaling Policy — its framework for governing how it develops increasingly capable AI systems — dropping its pledge not to continue training its AI after it had reached a certain level of capability unless it could guarantee its safety measures were adequate. Anthropic said the change was driven by competitive pressures and a lack of regulations. Critics have implied the move shifts Anthropic's mission away from the safety-first identity on which it was founded. At the same time, Amodei and Anthropic have been among the loudest voices calling for regulation of AI companies.

When it comes to company issues, Amodei said on the podcast, he takes an "unfiltered" approach. Inside Anthropic, he can be completely candid with employees about the's direction and the problems it faces. That openness, he said, is what keeps everyone on the same page — even as external pressure builds to reach profitability and outcompete rivals such as ChatGPT maker OpenAI.

"The point is to get a reputation of telling the company the truth about what's happening, to call things what they are, to acknowledge problems, to avoid the sort of 'corpo speak,' the kind of defensive communication that often is necessary in public," he said. "But if you have a company of people who you trust — and we try to hire people that we trust — then you can really just be entirely unfiltered."

If the listing proceeds, that internal candor will coexist with a different set of constraints: public-company executives operate under securities rules that govern what they may disclose, when, and to whom.

A version of this story was published on Fortune.com on Feb. 26, 2026.