Author: The Information

Translation: Rhythm Blockbeats

Camilla Clark has never held a formal position at Anthropic, but she might be the most unique person at the core of power within the company.

She is the wife of CEO Dario Amodei and one of his most important private advisors. Dario rarely listens to opinions outside his core circle; one investor described him as "more of a religious leader than a CEO." In this very small circle, besides his sister Daniela and a few co-founders, Clark is the one who has been by his side the longest.

But if we turn back the clock a decade or so, her life had almost nothing to do with AI.

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

Her first startup was related to adult films.

In 2009, Clark founded Eddice with the aim of producing high-quality adult films targeted at women. Adult content was challenging to secure investment for, so she had to seek funding herself. In 2011, she even met Jeffrey Epstein, who had already pleaded guilty to charges involving underage prostitution, and sent him a screenplay in hopes of securing investment.

Epstein did not invest.

The project ultimately did not materialize, 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 annual fees of up to $20,000. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt invested in her, while a Princeton biophysicist named Dario Amodei became her advisor.

The two met during this time.

Her healthcare startup also did not go far. Clark then joined the hot gesture recognition startup Leap Motion as the head of revenue, where she met Mira Murati, who later became a core executive at OpenAI.

After that, Dario's life accelerated suddenly.

He joined OpenAI, and in 2020 left with his sister and a group of core colleagues to found Anthropic. Clark stopped starting her own businesses but began to appear on a larger stage: beside Dario.

As Anthropic was just founded, she attempted to undertake something even bigger.

She wanted to establish a fund.

The name was "Mother of AGI."

Clark intended to use it to invest in Anthropic and other AI companies, hoping to raise billions in the long term. However, the co-founders of Anthropic worried that her relationship with Dario would create a conflict of interest and did not accept the proposal.

The fund did not materialize, but she had already brought her most important relationship into Anthropic.

It was Clark who introduced Dario to Eric Schmidt. The latter subsequently invested directly in Anthropic, becoming one of the company's earliest heavyweight investors. More dramatically, before Clark and Dario were dating, she had been in a brief dating relationship with Schmidt.

More than a decade later, as Anthropic became one of the most important AI companies in the world, Clark still holds no formal position.

However, she participates in Dario's personal security, discusses his public image, manages their joint investments, and helps filter the startup projects that come their way. From Davos to Sun Valley, and even meeting with French President Macron, she increasingly appears beside Dario.

Her network has also extended from Silicon Valley all the way to Washington.

Clark became friends with Ivanka Trump. Shortly after Dario and the Trump administration had intense conflicts over Pentagon AI policies, the two flew to Florida to meet Ivanka and Jared Kushner, discussing the possibility of Kushner's investment company investing in Anthropic.

Looking back at Clark's twenty years, it is hard to simply categorize her as a "CEO's wife."

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

She constantly switched identities, continually entering new circles.

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

But she sits next to Dario Amodei.

In a company where the CEO is described by investors as a "religious leader," this might be closer to power than any title.