Long before Cami Clark became closely associated with Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei and the upper reaches of Silicon Valley’s artificial intelligence world, she was trying to raise money for a very different kind of startup.
In 2011, Clark and her business partner Michelle Capocefalo were seeking investors for Eddice, a pornography venture aimed at women. Their fundraising efforts brought them into contact with Jeffrey Epstein, who at the time was already a registered sex offender.
The episode has resurfaced through reporting that draws on recently released government files. Wall Street Journal investigation, reported that literary agent John Brockman introduced Clark and Capocefalo to Epstein while the pair were looking for financial backing. Brockman told Epstein that the two women were in Los Angeles raising money for a pornographic film aimed at the women’s market.
The financial target adds an important detail to the story. Eddice was seeking $350,000 to produce its first four films, including a project titled “American Girl in Paris.” The company presented itself as a women-focused, sex-positive alternative to an industry traditionally marketed largely toward men, and used the tagline “intellectually promiscuous.”
Cami Clark personally followed up with Epstein
The introduction was not the end of the contact.
Clark later wrote directly to Epstein, reminding him of their earlier meeting by referring to Eddice as the “free luxury porn company” and asking whether he remembered it. Epstein replied that he did.
Clark then pitched him on investing in the company. Epstein declined.
After that rejection, the discussion shifted to another business idea. Clark described a “social dieting app + website geared toward women” that would bring together information from fitness trackers with data involving nutrition, menstrual cycles, mood and location.
The correspondence appears to have lasted considerably longer than a single fundraising approach. Government-released Epstein files cited in the report indicate that Clark continued corresponding with him for roughly two years. She also invited Epstein to a housewarming party and later connected with him on LinkedIn.
Nothing in the material cited in the report indicates that Epstein invested in Eddice. The account specifically states that he declined Clark’s investment pitch.
Eddice was an early chapter in Clark’s entrepreneurial career
Clark and Capocefalo had founded Eddice around 2010. Rather than simply competing with conventional pornography companies, the venture attempted to build its identity around female audiences and a different positioning for adult entertainment.
The business did not become the defining feature of Clark’s later career.
Her work subsequently moved toward women’s health technology. The dieting concept she discussed with Epstein eventually developed into a women’s healthcare AI business.
Her professional and personal networks were also increasingly intertwined with some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent technology figures.
Clark was in a relationship with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt beginning in 2011, a relationship the report says lasted three years. Schmidt later invested in one of her women’s-health ventures.
She began dating Dario Amodei in 2014, when Amodei was working as a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford. Clark later played a role in connecting people who would become important figures in the AI industry. The report says she introduced her friend Mira Murati to OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman. Murati went on to become OpenAI’s chief technology officer. Clark also helped connect Amodei and Schmidt.
A 40-page proposal sought to formalise Clark’s involvement around Anthropic
Clark’s proximity to Anthropic became more significant after Amodei and others left OpenAI and established the AI company.
Anthropic announced a $124 million Series A funding round in May 2021, with Schmidt among its investors.
Several months earlier, in February 2021, Clark had proposed a venture fund to Schmidt called the “Mother of AGI Fund.” A 40-page proposal described the fund as a way to formalise Clark’s involvement with Anthropic, manage Schmidt’s investment and invest more broadly in what it called the “AGI ecosystem.”
The proposal did not go ahead after it failed to gain support from others at Anthropic.
That distinction is important. Clark has never held an official role at Anthropic, according to the report. People close to the company, however, have described her as a sounding board and strategic adviser to Amodei.
Clark and Amodei later married in Italy.
From a $350,000 film pitch to the centre of the AI establishment
The contrast between Clark’s early fundraising efforts and her current proximity to one of artificial intelligence’s most influential companies is what gives the newly surfaced correspondence its wider significance.
She has appeared alongside Amodei at major technology and political gatherings, including Davos and the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley.
At an AI summit in New Delhi, executives were permitted to bring one additional person. While many chose colleagues, Amodei brought Clark.
Her visibility has also extended into political circles. At the Sun Valley conference in July, the report says Clark spent much of the week alongside Amodei, had lunch with Ivanka Trump and spoke with Jared Kushner.
The resurfaced Epstein correspondence does not establish a financial relationship between Epstein and Eddice. Instead, it documents a fundraising approach, Epstein’s rejection of the investment proposal, Clark’s subsequent pitch of another venture and correspondence that continued for roughly two years.
More than a decade later, those exchanges have attracted attention because Clark’s path moved from an attempt to raise $350,000 for four women-focused adult films to close proximity with Anthropic and some of the most powerful networks in modern artificial intelligence.
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