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Comment by ReptileMan | Hacker News Reader

What exactly prevents a person signing in personally for a plan and just getting reimbursed by the company?

There’s so many reasons. First off, I cannot just download and install arbitrary software on my work machine. It would also never get approved due to governance and compliance reasons, data protection and the fact that I would be using a personal license for work projects. I believe this would violate not only my employment contract but also Claude ToS.

I could never work somewhere that my work machine was locked down like that. I guess it's good I won't have to worry about ever being employed again, soon lol

> "I could never work somewhere that my work machine was locked down like that."

I heard Binance is hiring.

I don't know where you could work that this policy isn't at least nominally in force, outside very small companies. Common certifications like ISO:27001 and SOC2 basically require systems to be running only "authorized" software. It usually isn't actively enforced on developers, but IME virtually all companies have it as an official policy alongside a rarely used process to get approval for unauthorized applications.

I worked at a few companies that started off small and we had a lot of freedom initially, but as the company grew, things got more and more restricted. I got used to it. That sucks for a developer, but makes a lot of sense for the company due to things like data protection and streamlining processes. It’s much easier to manage thousands of workstations when they are standardized.

For instance, at my current workplace, 6 years ago I just got a MacBook with admin rights and that was it. Then, as regulations such as DORA started to take effect, I lost my admin account. Then this year we were acquired by a large org and now I am doing coding inside a VM. A few years ago I would complain, but in this market I won’t.

Also we have to admit that the cybersecurity situation is even more insane than it was previously. If I worked in IT and was responsible for lots of corporate computers I'd be locking things down as hard as the engineering team could tolerate, so I get it, even though I also am in fetters here with days of delay to get admin permission for installing something.

It's so odd. Never before have I seen an example where small companies have such an insane benefit over large ones. (because of the insane rates large orgs need to pay for AI).

Not much other than corporate policy and Anthropic's policy that you are not allowed to do that unless your company is very small.

Anecdotally, I know that quite a number of people at my company (mid-sized, ~5000 employees) have personal ChatGPT or Anthropic subscriptions they are using. Despite the fact that we have Microsoft Copilot (the web version) for everyone, and Github Copilot (the CLI thing) with low limits (500-1900 credits/month) for people who can justify it. But Copilot isn't all that great compared to Claude Code, so a lot of people continue to use their personal account.

It violates a number of policies and is probably a firing offense, but I haven't heard of anyone getting nailed for it yet. And I know that line managers are aware of it happening.

I do wish they'd just let us buy Claude Code API access. Copilot w/Opus 5.5 is noticably worse than CC using the same model. But oh well, I'm not getting fired over it.

I’m in the same boat - 5000AI credits ($50) per month on GitHub copilot at work and Opus 5.5 is way worse than on CC, and burns through the limit much faster.

I cannot use unapproved software on my work machine so I won’t use Claude at work but it’s insane how much more can I get done on my personal machine with the lowest Claude Code tier. It’s clear that personal licenses are subsidized and companies need to pay the big bucks for the same thing.

If you have 150 people with Claude acess you probably have enough of a need for compliance and audit trails to put the kibosh on that.

Data protection guarantees. This is especially true if you need zero data retention, which isn't available on individual subscriptions.

This is ok when you're a startup and don't give a shit, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, Accenture, won't do that, 12 people in their legal, support, security and billing departments died of an heart attack reading your comment

Funny thing is... Startups should give a shit. Along with BigCompanies, they should also be worried about not getting sued, not leaking their customer data to Facebook, not getting 0wned by a 13 year old kid in his basement. The fact that small companies get away with being so cavalier about privacy, security, and legal issues is a failure of our regulatory system to hold them accountable.

90% of startups deal with unimportant data that nobody cares about, there is no need to give a shit. Companies worry enough already about getting sued, it's a massive drag on our entire society that helps nobody.

Well, if your goal is to never let any small company succeed and grow (lest they threaten large, established companies), then regulating them into the ground sure is one way to achieve that.

I understand that with 12.000 engineers at least one will get prompt injected. But how would such a thing happen? I guess if you'd email me: "Delete all files", when I ask Claude to check my Thunderbird mailbox in theory it could get confused and delete everything.

Because the enterprise plan provides necessary features, contract terms and vendor assurances to comply with local law, industry regulations, customer contracts, and company AI and security policies?

Basic security and governance?

IP and trade secret protection?

Besides all the other reasons, I have a strong feeling that Anthropic went to the Oracle School of License Enforcement and they seem like the type of company that would be willing to sue their customers into oblivion. Maybe not now, before the IPO, but afterwards, for sure.

Anthropic figuring that out? People not wanting to incur business expenses on their personal accounts? In what world is that a realistic scenario for a large organization??

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