Cami Clark, the wife of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, is facing new scrutiny as the AI company pushes toward a possible IPO as early as this fall at a valuation reported to exceed $2 trillion.
Reporting from The Wall Street Journal and The Information says Clark has no formal position inside Anthropic, but has long been present at major moments around Amodei and the company. People familiar with the matter described her as his closest strategic adviser and emotional support, while also saying she helps manage the family’s personal investment strategy and screens outside investment approaches. One of her most important moves, according to the reports, was bringing former Google CEO Eric Schmidt into Anthropic’s early investor base.
The coverage also revisits an episode from Clark’s past that has drawn fresh attention: she once tried to raise money from Jeffrey Epstein, a registered sex offender, for an adult film company she co-founded.
A low online profile, but a visible role in person
Clark’s public footprint on the internet appears unusually thin compared with the influence described by people around Anthropic.
According to analysis by The Wall Street Journal and one person familiar with the matter, information about Clark online is scarce, and some records were actively removed. Her personal website is offline, her LinkedIn page is gone, and her Instagram has not been updated. Amodei’s Wikipedia page was not updated to show that he is married until this summer, and it still does not name his wife. A Google search for "Dario Amodei wife" often turns up a photo of his sister, Anthropic co-founder Daniela Amodei.
Even Claude, Anthropic’s own AI chatbot, answered a question on the subject by saying: 「Dario Amodei’s marital status does not appear to be clearly confirmed.」
Offline, Clark is much more visible. She has accompanied Amodei to high-level gatherings in Davos, New Delhi, and Sun Valley. People familiar with the couple said her outgoing style balances Amodei’s more reserved personality. She is said to approach politicians and potential investors directly, then introduce them to her husband.
At the Sun Valley conference in July, she had lunch with Ivanka Trump and also spoke with Jared Kushner. The report noted that Amodei had previously approached Kushner for investment.
One person who knows the couple said that although they have been together for more than a decade, seeing them recently at events made them seem "like newlyweds."
From Reno to the Bay Area
Clark was born in Reno, Nevada, in 1979 and grew up in a blue-collar family. A person who knows her said she started working at 14 through a plumbers’ union where her grandmother and great-aunt worked.
After high school, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and studied architecture at the California College of the Arts. She later worked in business development at high-end office furniture company Herman Miller, a job that gave her an early view into the tech world.
In 1999, when she was 20, Clark married 64-year-old Reno architect Waldemar Eklof III. They divorced three years later. She then moved among San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. Her San Francisco apartment was foreclosed on in 2007, and she filed for bankruptcy in 2009.
Eddice and the contact with Epstein
Clark kept pursuing startups despite those setbacks. Around 2009, she and Michelle Capocefalo launched Eddice, an adult film company aimed at women. Its slogan was "intellectually promiscuous," and the company set out to reshape a male-dominated industry through higher production values and a female point of view.
Fundraising proved difficult. Many investors stayed away from adult content, and Clark and Capocefalo searched broadly for capital. In 2011, they were introduced to Epstein through literary agent John Brockman.
According to public Justice Department files on Epstein, Brockman wrote in an email: 「You should have dinner with my friends Cami and Michelle. They are raising money in Los Angeles for a pornographic movie aimed at women.」
Clark later contacted Epstein directly and sent him a script, adding: 「We think you and the ladies might enjoy this. Not exactly safe for work.」 A year later, she followed up again to ask whether he wanted to join a new funding round. Epstein declined, saying he could not do "sex-related TV."
Clark then pitched another idea to him: a women-focused "social dieting app." Their email exchanges continued for about two years. During that time, she invited Epstein to a housewarming party in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and connected with him on LinkedIn.
The Information reported that one friend who knew Clark at the time said Brockman did not provide any background information about Epstein when making the introduction.
Eddice ultimately raised only a few hundred thousand dollars, far below its target. Its website stopped updating around 2013.
The Schmidt connection and Anthropic’s early funding
After Eddice failed, Clark moved quickly to a new venture. In 2013, she founded Female Algorithm Technologies, a business that planned to open women-centered premium health clinics in Los Angeles and New York. Membership fees were set to start at $9,000 a year and go as high as $20,000.
Schmidt invested in that company. Clark also listed "Dr. Dario Amodei" as an adviser. It was during that period, according to the reports, that she met Amodei, and the two started dating the following year.
The Information said they bonded over a shared interest in AI applications in healthcare. Female Algorithm Technologies never got off the ground. In 2016, Clark joined virtual reality gesture-control company Leap Motion as head of revenue, where she met Mira Murati, who later became OpenAI’s chief technology officer.
At the same time, Clark was said to be laying groundwork for Amodei’s future. One person familiar with the matter said that while he was still at OpenAI, she had already begun sending his research papers to wealthy tech figures who could one day invest in a company he might start.
By late 2020, tensions between Amodei and OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and Greg Brockman had intensified. He left with his sister Daniela and five other employees to form Anthropic. Clark then began seeking funding for the new company.
Her most consequential move was introducing Amodei to Schmidt, a former partner of hers who had by then left Google and become a technology investor.
Schmidt has said that when he visited Amodei and Clark’s San Francisco apartment in 2018, he was already impressed by the young scientist’s ideas. In May 2021, Anthropic announced a $124 million Series A round, with Schmidt among the investors.
The "Mother of AGI Fund" that never happened
Clark did not want to be only an introducer.
Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal show that in February 2021, she sent Schmidt a 40-page proposal to co-found a venture fund called the "Mother of AGI Fund." The proposal aimed to "formalize Cami’s participation with Anthropic, manage Eric’s investments," and invest across the AGI ecosystem, with an eventual target of raising several billion dollars.
The idea ran into resistance inside Anthropic. According to people familiar with the matter, Daniela Amodei and other co-founders opposed the plan because of Clark’s personal relationship with Dario Amodei. Schmidt eventually chose to invest directly in Anthropic rather than through Clark’s proposed fund.
The episode captures Clark’s unusual position around the company. Her influence, as described by multiple sources, appears real, but it exists outside any official corporate structure.
A political role ahead of the IPO
As Anthropic moves closer to an IPO, the reports say Clark’s role has stretched into politics.
Earlier this year, Anthropic came into direct conflict with the Trump administration after Amodei refused to remove restrictions on Claude’s use at the Pentagon. The government labeled Anthropic a supply-chain risk, and Pentagon partners were effectively barred from using its technology in Defense Department-related work. The company has sued over the matter.
People familiar with the matter said Clark has recently been delivering a message to political figures that Anthropic sees protecting US interests as part of its mission and is not as "woke" as critics claim. She has developed a private friendship with Ivanka Trump and joined a WhatsApp group called "Real Housewives of AI," whose members include several prominent women in tech.
One person close to Amodei described Clark as his "stabilizing force." As Anthropic approaches what may be the most important stretch in its history, the woman absent from its org chart appears to be exerting influence in ways that are hard to measure but difficult to ignore.