TL;DR
- 5 new Corp Dev & M&A roles this week, plus additional roles on our designated job board at corpdevcareers.com
- Anthropic vs. the Government
- Corporate Development Roles in Major AI Companies are on the Rise
- Consolidation in the AI Race Could Cause Problems for Consumers
This Week's Roles
This week's hand-picked roles across Corporate Development, Corporate Strategy, and Buyside M&A:
Corporate Development Associate
CoreWeave (Nasdaq: CRWV)
Support the CDO, CSO, and CFO on M&A execution, investment analysis, and fundraising initiatives at one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure companies.
Director, Corporate Development
Discord
Lead Discord's M&A engine — sourcing, structuring, closing, and integrating strategic acquisitions. Reports to VP of Corporate Strategy with direct C-suite exposure.
Senior Manager, Corporate Development
Cologix
Lead identification, evaluation, and execution of acquisitions and strategic investments at North America's leading network-neutral data center platform.
Corporate Development Associate
Riskified (NYSE: RSKD)
Drive M&A and investment sourcing at a publicly traded eCommerce fraud prevention platform, reporting directly to the CFO.
Corporate Development Associate
Solen Software Group
Drive M&A sourcing — identifying and engaging founders of bootstrapped B2B SaaS businesses at an evergreen holding company focused on acquiring niche vertical software.
A Legal Battle with The Pentagon
Anthropic vs. the Government
Perhaps it's not the most topical battle currently being waged, but the U.S. Government has nevertheless set its sights on the domestically-controlled AI supergiant, Anthropic (developer of Claude).
In July of 2025, Anthropic signed a $200M deal with the Pentagon to deploy its models on classified military systems, which have been reportedly used in operations involving Iran and the Maduro Operation. The Pentagon has reportedly been widely using Claude Code to write software code.
In the fall of 2025, the Department of Defense pushed for unrestricted access to Claude for "all lawful uses". Anthropic refused, citing two key restrictions they refused to lift: no mass surveillance of U.S. citizens (which could infringe upon the Fourth Amendment), and no lethal autonomous warfare (risky, for obvious ethical and safety reasons).
When Anthropic didn't budge, Trump directed every federal agency to "immediately cease" all use of Anthropic's technology, and U.S. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth went on to state that no military entity (including contractors, suppliers, and partners) may "conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic". Companies working with the U.S. military would now have to prove that they weren't actively using Anthropic's product.
This past month, Anthropic challenged the Pentagon's actions in court, arguing that the administration's actions had caused irreparable harm. U.S. District Judge Rita Lin issued a ruling blocking the Pentagon's effort, finding that it violated both the First Amendment and due process rights.
In recent interviews, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei used the analogy of aircraft manufacturers setting limits on altitude for certain planes to describe why AI companies need to set clear boundaries on how and where their products are used. He went on to say that he does not believe that AI is currently reliable enough to entrust to lethal weapon automation, nor does he believe that control over such a powerful weapon should be left in the hands of the few. A compelling argument, I think, and one that we should take seriously.
It doesn't come as a surprise to me that several key safety personnel at top AI companies have been resigning over the past several months…
Sources: CNBC (Mar 2026); CBS News (Mar 2026); CNN (Mar 2026); Washington Times (Apr 2026); Axios (Feb 2026); NBC News (Feb 2026); U.S. News & World Report / Reuters (Mar 2026); Defense One (Mar 2026); MIT Technology Review (Mar 2026); Breaking Defense (Mar 2026); Built In (Mar 2026); Tech Policy Press (Mar 2026); The Nation (Mar 2026); Rolling Stone (Feb 2026); Anthropic - Dario Amodei Statement (Feb 2026); CBS News - Amodei Full Interview Transcript (Feb 2026); Tech Brew (Feb 2026); CNN Business - AI Researcher Departures (Feb 2026)
Editor's Note
When the U.S. Government bans its agencies, suppliers, and contractors from using a product like Anthropic's, the result can be crippling.
But social perception has a power of its own. If the Pentagon is unable to legally block Anthropic from doing business, and those businesses recognize the product as truly valuable, this legal battle could potentially serve to cement Anthropic as a necessary component of the supply chain.
The court of public approval also has a part to play here. Do consumers, en masse, side with Anthropic for refusing the Pentagon's requests? Hard to say, but not altogether unlikely. I certainly find their reluctance to engage in an undertaking with potentially disastrous consequences to be, for lack of a better word, refreshing.
Corporate Development Roles in Major AI Companies are on the Rise
AI giants, data centers, and digital infrastructure companies are shelling out big money to fuel acquisitions — and poaching talent to do so.
OpenAI acquires business talk show TBPN, Anthropic acquires stealth AI startup Coefficient Bio
We're only nine days into the month of April, and OpenAI and Anthropic have already added to the long list of acquisitions we've seen this year.
Anthropic acquired Coefficient for a cool $400 Million — a company that was founded eight months ago and had fewer than 10 employees. The move is a bet by Anthropic that general-purpose AI will be able to materially accelerate drug discovery, and is part of a broader investment in Healthcare which includes the launch of Claude for Life Sciences and Claude for Healthcare, both rolled out in the last year.
OpenAI's acquisition of TBPN (reportedly in the low hundreds of millions against their $5MM in 2025 revenue) seems to be less about investment in AI itself, and more about controlling the narrative surrounding AI. TBPN, a platform showcasing three-hour-long daily programming with frequent tech guests has grown massively in popularity since its launch in 2024, particularly with the Silicon Valley crowd. The 11-person team at TBPN will reportedly maintain editorial independence. TBPN joins 6-7 other companies OpenAI has acquired in 2026 already, and cumulatively they have spent an estimated $7.7B on acquisitions in the past year. To fuel this acquisition activity, OpenAI has enlisted ex-Google executive Albert Lee to lead corporate development initiatives.
OpenAI's total acquisition list includes:
- io (Jony Ive's device studio) — $6.5B, May 2025
- Statsig (experimentation platform) — ~$1B, Sep 2025
- Torch Health (medical records AI) — ~$100M, Jan 2026
- Convogo, Crixet — Jan 2026
- OpenClaw (acqui-hire) — Feb 2026
- Astral (Python tooling) — Mar 2026
- Promptfoo (cybersecurity) — 2026
- TBPN — Apr 2026
Sources: TechCrunch (Apr 2026); CNBC (Apr 2026); OpenAI Blog (Apr 2026); CNN (Apr 2026); Slate (Apr 2026); The Next Web (Apr 2026); BioSpace (Apr 2026); Fierce Biotech (Apr 2026); Pharmaphorum (Apr 2026); Crunchbase News (Mar 2026); StartupHub (Jan 2026); Tracxn (Apr 2026)
Editor's Note
If you're looking to get started in M&A, or are looking for a new job, now is not a bad time to be searching. Companies are looking to grow, seemingly at all costs — and are evaluating myriad strategies to do so.
Whether you're interested in execution, operations, M&A strategy, or origination, there's a real desire for talent. While AI is changing the landscape, it is also opening doors for those who can use it to differentiate themselves from the competition.
Consolidation Could Cause Problems for Consumers
It's interesting to follow along with these acquisitions, but keep in mind we are in the middle of a race — a race that is generally good for us as users as long as it remains competitive.
AI providers are scrambling to acquire as many customers as possible right now, and that means providing products and services at low cost to minimize consumer barriers to entry. I've heard some unconfirmed reports that Anthropic is taking a loss on some Claude power users who are maximizing token usage, as the energy costs and compute spend to power those users are exceeding the revenue they generate.
What happens when Anthropic goes public, and needs to increase their share price? Generally speaking, it's the consumer who suffers in these situations. Now consider an individual who has their whole tech stack revolving around a single parent company — programming on Claude Code, data built into Claude, and using the Anthropic API key for web search, and you can see how this could be problematic.
If one company were to find themselves so far ahead of the competition that there was no longer any threat of losing meaningful market share, dramatic price increases would be the logical next step.
Last week we discussed how 80% of Anthropic's revenue is coming from business customers. Fortunately, consumer users still have an impact on corporate users, as it's likely that the individuals using AI at corporations were using it as individuals first. AI companies might see individual users as low cost word-of-mouth generators, a good passive sales strategy if their focus is to increase the number of business users.
My advice? Keep using different systems in your daily work — let's prolong this race for as long as we can.
Thank You
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— Liam