Anthropic’s CFO Wields Power Behind the Scenes

Krishna Rao, a former Airbnb finance executive, has steered Anthropic through $60 billion in funding and complicated computing deals. Now all eyes are on an expected IPO.

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Anthropic CFO Krishna Rao. Art by Mike Sullivan.

These days, Anthropic is a crowded place: a startup with its own in-house philosopher, researchers devoted to preventing Armageddon and a CEO willing to go toe-to-toe with the Pentagon. And then there’s Chief Financial Officer Krishna Rao, who has emerged as a key force within the company while staying far out of the spotlight.

When Rao first arrived in 2024, he began pushing Anthropic, which had an agreement with Google for cloud computing, to strike deals with multiple chip providers and cloud partners. One of the people he discussed the plan with was Byron Deeter, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, an Anthropic investor. Deeter credits Rao with the insight that Anthropic could be growing even faster with more partners.