Anthropic CPO: How AI Will Build the Next $100M Companies | Mike Krieger

In the AI age, anyone can become a hundred million dollar entrepreneur, build a company solo. Do you think it is possible now?

>> I think it's very >> This is Mike Kger. A lot of you guys know him as co-founder of Instagram.

He's also chief product officer at Anthropic, building Claude and shaping how we work and solve problems using AI.

>> The next step there is Claude actually being an entire sort of co-orker. It's

going to do everything perfectly well.

You're a first-time entrepreneur without a big network. You're doing all those things yourself. So why not try to bring

things yourself. So why not try to bring the best of what we know into that company uh via something like Claude?

>> And it's not just hype. Cloud is already helping millions of people with product building, being their lure, and even being their therapist. People who just graduated from college are struggling to find jobs because a lot of entry-

levelvel jobs being replaced with AI. Do

you ever wake up at night and think like, oh my god, where the world is going with AI?

>> This could be really positive for humanity. It also could go quite badly

humanity. It also could go quite badly and there's going to be economic impacts. There's going to be labor

impacts. There's going to be labor impacts.

>> So, should we be hopeful or afraid?

>> Hello everyone. Welcome to Silicon Valley Girl. I have an amazing person

Valley Girl. I have an amazing person here today, Mike. Thank you so much for being here.

>> It's good to be here.

>> Uh you have this amazing story of building a huge company, but also you are at the forefront of what's happening with AI right now. There's been this

conversation that in the AI age anyone can become a hundred million dollar entrepreneur like build a company solo.

Do you think it is possible now or we're still away from that?

>> I think it's very possible just even watching the journey I went on with Instagram where we did a lot of the initial work with just me and Kevin and we were able to do a lot with just the two of us and there's a focus and an

energy when you get when you just have one or two people working on something.

I think the ideal is actually too because it's helpful having a partner when going through the ups and downs.

But what I've learned is as you grow, every person you grow the team is another person that can bring their own ideas and bring their energy which is great. But it's also another person that

great. But it's also another person that you need to get on board if you need to shift where the company is going. And so

what I think is very exciting now is that one, two, three person team can scale themselves up, do a lot more than they would have been able to do before, maybe do it faster, um, and preserve

that kind of I call it conceptual integrity. like you have like all of

integrity. like you have like all of what matters about that company in your head or in two heads basically working together versus trying to steer a huge ship.

>> Do you think being technical is crucial to building a large company these days or it is unnecessary with all the existing tools? I think you know with

existing tools? I think you know with with increasing things like cloud code um with like products online I think you're getting to the point where you're able to at least get to um a version of

your idea where you can see if there's something there you know because that's like the biggest thing that I've get like in the age of kind of mobile apps first emerging. I would hear from people

first emerging. I would hear from people all the time and they'd be like, "Mike, I have a great idea for a mobile app.

Like, do you know any mobile engineers or how do I get it built?" And that was often where the idea would die. And some

of those ideas maybe wouldn't have worked out, but some of them might actually have created something really novel, right? There would be people that

novel, right? There would be people that said, "Oh, I have a novel idea for a social app or a dating app or a game."

And so many of those ideas just kind of like, you know, kind of died at that stage. And so what I think is exciting

stage. And so what I think is exciting is even if the the tools aren't there where they're not necessarily going to get you from your first 10 users to your first million users in terms of the system scaling up, they'll at least get

you in front of those first 10 people, right? Like get you to the prototype or

right? Like get you to the prototype or even that initial version. And that

seems very possible even people who aren't um technical. We see that inside Anthropic where some of our non-engineers, you know, people in marketing, people in communications who

just have had an idea in the back of their heads for a while will sit and talk to Claude and work with Claude code on the weekends and then share it internally like look what I built and I don't code at all.

>> That's super cool. So what would be your uh road map? So come up with an idea, build an MVP, share it with like 10 20 people. U you had experience where you

people. U you had experience where you had to shut down the company, right? Can

you tell what the product was?

>> It was a our second company. I started a second company with the same um uh co-founder as Instagram and it was called Artifact. And the product itself

called Artifact. And the product itself I'm super proud of. It was a AI powered news uh recommendation product. So we

would learn your interests and then we would give you a feed of you know different articles and and stories that you might be interested in. Um, and at like a really nuanced level like you people might be interested in um not

just graphic design but you know uh bow house graphic design or Japanese architecture like really understanding the kinds of things that people were like more deeply interested in but the product didn't hit enough of like a

product market um you know fit and an acceleration that made it made sense to continue to invest in it. So that

process of having created something and iterated on it and built a team around it but then also coming to the realization that the right thing was to move on from it was really challenging >> and the pressure was on right it was right after Instagram.

>> It was and you know and then that you know in some ways that was really a hindrance.

>> When do you make this decision about an idea that you showed to maybe like 20 people? Yeah.

people? Yeah.

>> When do you say like hey this is it or do I keep pushing? I think for me it's very much when you're um in that phase are you as you're making changes and as you're showing it to people and they're

giving you feedback and then maybe maybe you even have some people using it does it feel like the more you change or the you know as you listen to feedback and make some alterations is is there like a snowball effect where energy is

increasing? We definitely saw that in

increasing? We definitely saw that in early Instagram and we had initially a group of maybe 20 30 people using it in just a private beta and you know it was very much a weekend product right because you're out and about and

especially in the early days that's all you were doing was just taking photos with Instagram. it wasn't that, you

with Instagram. it wasn't that, you know, you were uploading photos from somewhere else or your camera roll. And

so we would find that we would work all week and then on Friday we'd ship a new version to those like 20, 30, 40 testers and then we'd see what would happen over the weekend. And every weekend those

the weekend. And every weekend those changes that we were making, we'd hear from people, oh, I tried the new filter, I tried this thing, it's going it's going well. Um, so that's what I look

going well. Um, so that's what I look for a lot. And I think where it's time to maybe either pivot the company or move on to something else is when you feel like, man, I've tried every idea that I have or I've added 30 things and

none of them are really sticking or people are kind of okay about it but they're not excited about it. And that's

maybe where you might want to step back and say there's probably energy better spent somewhere else. Like the way it's not scientific, but when you feel like one unit of input you're getting 10 units of output, that's a good feeling.

When it feels like 10 units of input, you're getting one of output, it's time to pivot to something else.

>> What fascinates me most in these conversations about AI is that how our consumption behavior changes. I wonder

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And big thanks to HubSpot for sponsoring this video. Let's talk about people who

this video. Let's talk about people who already have a business. Uh, I've heard you talk about how people are not using AI enough in their businesses. What do

you think are top maybe two or three cases how entrepreneurs can use cloud to automate some operations which doesn't require you to be very technical? Yeah.

So, I was actually talking to a fellow friend who's a second or third time founder and uh he was telling me he's like, "Mike, I'm really glad you launched Claude Max because Claude is my

product manager. Claude is my lawyer. Um

product manager. Claude is my lawyer. Um

Claude is my, you know, uh founder therapist as well." And what he does is he has a Claude project for each of those disciplines. So, he has his

those disciplines. So, he has his product manager Claude, he has his uh you know, like contracts Claude, and he just uses that for all of those things.

it's let him run a very lean um initial company overall and and do those pieces.

And so even though he happens to be fairly technical, but he's not coding with Claude really in his day-to-day, he's actually set up Claude to be um sort of a mini version of some of these disciplines already. Even as the models,

disciplines already. Even as the models, you know, continue to get more and more powerful in those ways. Even today with the right context and the right sort of history around something you really can

start having these sort of per job function thought partners in there and for an entrepreneur for sure you know have uh you know a model that validates your idea or sees what you might be

missing um another one doing you know competitive intelligence to understand what's even out there and understanding those pieces of course helping you build with code is another another part of it too but even beyond that the way I like

to think of it When you grow a company, you want to go hire. I want the best CFO. I want, you know, the best head of

CFO. I want, you know, the best head of product, etc. When you're a entrepreneur, especially like I was a first-time entrepreneur without a big network, you're doing all those things

yourself. So, why not try to bring the

yourself. So, why not try to bring the best of what we know into that company uh via something like Claude?

>> What do you think is going to happen in two or three years? How we're going to progress in advance? I think part of it and I was having this conversation this morning even with some of our our researchers um the the progression or

the the dynamic that I see is um if last year maybe the beginning of this year um these models and I'll use claude as the example were really kind of uh assistants that were helping you with

maybe a question at a time or maybe a task right um this year they're moving more into collaborators where um especially if you watch somebody use um cloud code for example they're actually

delegating what would have taken them maybe 20, 30 minutes and Claude's going off and doing it and then you're checking in and you're more on the sort of validating or verifying work, right?

Going into next year, you're going to delegate even bigger chunks of time or even like pieces of the job out to that.

So, it's not just I have this very specific thing, please go do it. And it

could be more sort of think of it, Claude, as something that's in the loop of your business. So, hey Claude, um, watch for any new user feedback and maybe propose a change based on that.

And you can imagine evolving that. don't

just propose a change, write the code to make the change and I'll check if it's a good idea or not. Um, and then the next step there is Claude actually being an entire sort of co-orker where it has a

discipline. So, not just a project that

discipline. So, not just a project that happens to be a good thought partner for product management, but an actual product manager in your company >> like being active, right? Is that what you mean? When it I don't know, look at

you mean? When it I don't know, look at your ads and says like, "Hey, hey, hey, I'm going to change this."

>> Exactly.

>> He's telling you. So, when do you think that's going to happen? I think that is within, you know, it depends a little bit on the discipline with um coding sort of tasks. I think within the year we'll start seeing Claude be able to do those things. And I think in some of

those things. And I think in some of these other disciplines maybe it's more like two or three years, but it's not wildly far away. And it's not that it's going to do everything perfectly well.

There's still going to be this validation human in the loop aspect of it. Um but I think the big shift is

it. Um but I think the big shift is going to be this autonomy and proactivity where you're not having to give it explicit instructions every time and instead um you can almost describe

what kind of role you want it to play and then it will be able to play that role as long as you've connected it to the right um you know data sources >> and how active you want it to be right because now it's basically just you chatting I want the model to be talking

to me as well proactively like hey I just noticed this >> that would be cool >> exactly >> half a year ago Dario Amade today said 90% of code would be written by AI. What

percentage of code is written by AI at anthropic? Now

anthropic? Now >> it depends on the product but for our products that are sort of the closest to being written. So cloud code for

being written. So cloud code for example, they're doing almost entirely the the development of that is using cloud to develop cloud.

>> How has it changed the way you work?

>> Well, it's let me who I like being technical but my day-to-day often is in you know uh external commitments or doing management. Um it's let me remain

doing management. Um it's let me remain really technical which is fun. So like

because we've oriented the codebase to being able to be written by claude, it means somebody like me can also contribute as well. So we launched our cloud for Chrome just uh it was earlier

this week and uh I had a little bit of time on a business trip and I said, "Oh, I have two hours free. What am I going to do?" I was like, "I'm going to

to do?" I was like, "I'm going to contribute to this thing that I know we're shipping in a couple of weeks."

And so it's broadened the group of people that can contribute for sure. Um

I think it's also kind of moved where the bottlenecks are where we need to pay special attention to. So I think we've put more time up front now into all right let's get clarity across our team

about what needs to get done so that you know we don't have this like amazing technology that can code really quickly but the engineers are actually not even sure what the thing is that needs to get built. So that still remains very

built. So that still remains very important right being aligned having that that consistent vision and then on the last part which is that you know codes being ready to you know get

committed and get reviewed the number of pull requests and changes that are going into our codebase is just dramatically accelerated. One of our um developer

accelerated. One of our um developer productivity engineers shared this last week we're just on an exponential there too. So we've had to re-engineer those

too. So we've had to re-engineer those systems too.

>> Crazy. Wow. Claude for Chrome. You

mentioned is it gonna fix email?

Something done for us like yesterday. Uh

I just came back from a business trip.

My kids went to school and they were because they don't really some of them like Lily who doesn't speak English. She

doesn't understand what's going on. She

was like tomorrow's pajamas day and I was asking my AI like is it really? And

it's like no no all good nothing's happening at school. And of course we come and it's pajamas.

>> Pajamas day. Yeah.

>> Like oops.

>> And it was interesting. The demo we had in front of the company was um was like cloud triaging emails and it's still you know probably too slow right now still to be like the main way in which you

interact with your emails but um I went through for example I had a lot of pending LinkedIn uh invites but I and I wanted to you know ignore the ones that weren't real but I wanted to make sure that if it was somebody from anthropic

or it sounded like they knew me that we would like make sure that we uh captured those. And so I had Claude just kind of

those. And so I had Claude just kind of triage that whole inbox for, you know, an hour actually and it went through.

>> Did you have to code something or you just asked?

>> Just asked it. I was like, "Hey, >> that's Claude for Chrome, right? Just

ask it to go through." Oh, wow.

>> Yeah. Visit LinkedIn. Look at my invitation.

>> Be your assistant in your browser.

>> Exactly.

>> Can you share some personal practices for how you use Claude?

>> For me, it's anytime I've written something. I found that I still want to

something. I found that I still want to take the first draft myself because I, you know, sometimes writing is thinking and that's really important that you're actually, at least for me, that I'm kind of expressing myself through writing.

But before showing any human, basically anything I write that's of substance, I'll basically tell Claude and say, "Hey, I'm writing on this like what am I missing? Please challenge me on what I'm

missing? Please challenge me on what I'm I haven't said yet." And sometimes it'll give you a suggestion. And it ranges from I can't believe I forgot to address that. It would have been really

that. It would have been really embarrassing to share this document and not have this. And then sometimes it's, oh wow, I wasn't even thinking about this dimension. It's something like very

this dimension. It's something like very uh new and different. And actually, I use it less for copy editing, but I use it a lot for challenging my ideas and and figuring out how to, you know, um

kind of understand what a very smart person looking at this would ask as the next follow-up question and then can you kind of go from there?

>> Do do you still type? You said you're writing or you would do voice.

>> Um it's kind of a mix. Another thing

I've done with Claude sometimes when I'm like I I'm a little bit of writer's block. I need to get started, but I

block. I need to get started, but I still want that experience of working through an idea myself is I will uh turn on the voice mode and just talk to it for 20 minutes sometimes and at the end

say, "All right, that was a lot. Now,

can you organize that into some kind of, you know, real cohesive document that you can that I can send?"

>> When do you think it's going to happen that AI generates ideas better than humans? Cuz what where I see this going,

humans? Cuz what where I see this going, you have this marketing AI, you have this product AI. What if we just combine all of this and tell like hey AI go

identify niches in the market where you can build a business build a business launch ads make me money like when is do you think it's going to happen and >> well it's an interesting one experiment

we ran internally um is so we have a whole team that really starting to really focus on um sort of cloud in the real world or you know frontier applications of cloud and what can we learn by studying it and one of the things that we had it do is actually run

a vending machine and now it's multiple vending machines here at the office. Um,

and so people could talk to Claude. It's

it's a great paper. It's called Project Vend. Um, and what's interesting is in

Vend. Um, and what's interesting is in some cases it's very capable. Like it

was able to track inventory, place backup orders, like do all these things, interact with the people who were talking to it, but as a pure sort of business, it still made some like

mistakes like overestimating demand, you know, overcharging or undercharging for certain things. So uh I think one aspect

certain things. So uh I think one aspect that we need to develop before it's fully ready to be sort of a entrepreneur in a box is a little bit more of that business sense and and how to understand the market like what is actually

sellable etc. But often we find with some steering or some feedback it actually can do very very well. So maybe

initially it's still going to be all right, partner with a person. Let's go,

you know, maybe like business school 101, like identify a problem or a market gap, try it out, learn from it, um see what worked and what didn't and go and and build from there. Um but what I

think is also really interesting is that you can also set up some experiments around like what are the things that people are searching for? like what are the demands like what are the feedback that other products are getting that maybe a new product could feel better

and then have Claude both brainstorm the idea and then also go off and build it.

>> Do you think it's more for you as an entrepreneur also is it more encouraging or discouraging when AI is getting so powerful?

>> I think for me you know having watched over the years like the the friction to starting something new in some ways has decreased in other in other cases is about the same. you know, it's uh there's more resources out there about

what is it like to incorporate or raise money than there was when I was when I was doing even Instagram for the first time, but building stuff is still, you know, can still be a challenge and that needs needs to continue to get easier.

So, I always felt like there was more good ideas than there were, you know, products that kind of surface those ideas out there. So, I think it's exciting to have more of that um out there. Partially also because if the

there. Partially also because if the cost of creating that company goes down, we should also get new funding models.

Not every idea needs to be a huge venture funded, you know, billion dollar business. Um, but if you have to build a

business. Um, but if you have to build a whole tech team around it and you have to go hire and then it's going to require some funding. And so I'm very excited about, call it the next 5 years

of companies that can scale from the, you know, worldchanging venture-funded crazy ambitious companies, but also the ones that solve a problem really well for a particular demographic and maybe

remain a one to five person team along with AI. Yeah, this is where I think

with AI. Yeah, this is where I think this model because I raised uh venture capital as a creator like I was the first creator to do that. I feel like this is the age where you invest in humans because now they can iterate through so many ideas and

>> yes >> a year and you want to back someone who has these ideas and uh can execute >> 100%.

>> For all the entrepreneurs who are watching where should they start today if they want to start?

>> I mean I think there's two things that I think you'd think about that are unique to the moment versus like generally about starting companies. one is um not building for where the models are today, but where you think that they can get to

in one or two model generations. By the

time you've built it, the models will have done that that move on. And so um the way you do that is to push the models as hard as you can, like break them almost and say, "Wow, wouldn't it

be great if um uh one experiment somebody ran internally was like they gave Claude their whole to-do list, you know, in like reminders or something was like, "Hey, Claude, go do all these things." I mean really quickly hit a

things." I mean really quickly hit a point where well it didn't have all the information about me so it can't do it or this is before we had cloud for Chrome it can't use my browser so it can't like go and you know fill out this form that I needed to fill out

>> but then you can imagine well what if it could all right should I be building towards that and does that feel like a fiveyear journey or like a you know two months and six months and things are accelerating and so that's like a very

big piece I think is like the best companies um are building like ready to you know take advantage of the fact that the models will continue to to improve prove and your advantage as an entrepreneur is that you don't have a

legacy codebase. You don't have people

legacy codebase. You don't have people using a product in a particular way. You

can build for that, you know, kind of inflection point.

>> It's just so hard to predict like if the model is going to take over your whole business niche, right?

>> But I think that, you know, and it definitely hard to predict in the, you know, threeear range at that point, you can also kind of evolve the business.

But like seeing what models were bad at 6 months ago or are better at now or like okay today but could be better at the future. I think that can really come

the future. I think that can really come just from like constant contact with them >> and just start iterating.

>> What would be your advantage compared to a model that could do the same thing in a year?

>> Yeah. I mean then yeah it's very much so. Exactly. If you can create that um

so. Exactly. If you can create that um if you're building at that edge and you understand your customer segment then you're going to be the one that is going to best be suited to say all right you know what also got better like this

aspect and I get how that's going to connect to my customer segment and I already have the relationships cuz people are still they seek trust still right and you know somebody who understands their segment and has the

relationships is going to you know be a more trustworthy source any day than like a brand new person or a company that they've never interacted before.

>> Yeah. And I like how you said in one of your interviews that every product has this vibe.

>> Yes.

>> And uh if you're building something with passion, then it definitely has your vibe, right? That some people are going

vibe, right? That some people are going to connect with and that's going to be yours.

>> Exactly. Right. And that that's your voice coming through there even beyond whatever AI is going to provide.

>> What would be your advice to entrepreneurs who are looking to start a company? What niches do you think have

company? What niches do you think have the most potential?

>> I think people um are still u fundamentally like human and still have like very human needs. So I think a lot of the the aspects I still think about being really important are for example people's health both physical and mental

and even though there's the beginning of AI helping with those aspects I think there's so much more potential around that as well right how do we relate to ourselves how do we develop our own you know understanding of where we're

showing up well where we could be showing up better um how we can continue to evolve kind of as individuals but as also as teams or as partners so that's another an area that I think um I'm

excited for more companies to get formed in their fitness fitness and performance coaching is another another place that's important there. Um too, I think there's

important there. Um too, I think there's also going to be this uh renaissance of being, you know, into the physical or the real world. You know, you had very much this like, you know, social media

like thing that was, you know, Instagram at its best was helping people get out and see the world in a different way. At

scale, maybe it became more about like watching what other people were doing than going out yourself, right? So, how

do we get new companies and products that are about, you know, either exploring something new, getting to see the city through a new light, participating in a civic way that's different? I think not all of these

different? I think not all of these require AI, but done right, they could be encouraged by AI.

>> What should be entrepreneurs focusing on? Is it getting expertise in the niche

on? Is it getting expertise in the niche where they're building or just being focused on like identifying those niches and iterating ideas? I think a lot of the most important companies are going to come from understanding those niches

or those businesses. So a friend of mine is uh building a company in the construction space and she went to all of the construction conferences got to know people really building in that

space and understanding what is like uniquely important about that. This

reminds me a lot of when I was at the Stanford D school, that whole process of developing empathy and storytelling and really getting to the heart of what the needs are where technology actually can

have an impact on an industry or a person in a positive way. That ends up being very very important. You know,

I've also met another entrepreneur who works with AI for a very specific type of legal practice and they're, you know, going off to, you know, states in the US

that aren't the most techfor necessarily spending a lot of time with people who are in that particular discipline. So

that kind of expertise is I think what is going to differentiate the companies because it's going to be easier to build, but that knowledge of like what actually to build and how to build very specifically for that is going to be

what's really valuable. What about

marketing? Because it feels like okay ideas I can generate a lot of ideas.

Claude can help me then I build the product with claude or replet or lovable. What what's going to happen to

lovable. What what's going to happen to marketing? Everyone's talking about like

marketing? Everyone's talking about like hey every what should be on social media because otherwise how do you market your idea? What do you think?

idea? What do you think?

>> That's definitely evolved from when we were building Instagram. the way you got your, you know, product out there, especially a social product like Instagram was for us people sharing their Instagram creations to um Facebook

and to Twitter at the time and then seeing that link and then finding that it's definitely shifted to much more of this uh sort of creator, you know, whether it's Instagram or on Tik Tok and people telling those stories um and and

discovering those products. It's

interesting watching that evolution now and kind of wondering like well what comes after that as well you know is it going to be um still like al algorithmic recommendations are we going to return

to oh like word of mouth I really like this thing and it solved my very specific problem and I'm going to share it with you and maybe there's some combination of those two that needs to needs to happen but I completely agree

that the what will also differentiate beyond an understanding of a market is also the ability to tell the story around that >> yeah what was going to happen to content you I think in two or three years cuz my

feed is like maybe 50% AI something like crazy going on or I see an AI generated image. It's been in like I uh I like use

image. It's been in like I uh I like use trying to use social products from all around the world and for a while I was using um a social media app that was um like very popular in China and the thing

that struck me was that you had creators that were really good at AI generated sort of fantastical architecture and they had a real following even though their work was all generated because

they had a voice and so I think that is the the next piece that um not a lot of people are doing well which is yes you can be using AI for generating videos or text, but if it's just generic or if

it's just, you know, kind of a bunch of random things that you manage to generate, I don't think that's going to generate following or I think that's not going to generate um like a a real uh presence on these platforms. Whereas, I

remember there was a a photographer that early Instagram photographer, like probably one of our first 10,000 users, and he took a photo of the same hill like outside his window like every day.

And it was like that was like a photographic practice that he had. And

that was really cool because then his followers could see that he had a view of the world and and kind of a perspective. And I think the same thing

perspective. And I think the same thing needs to be true to succeed as a creator, even if you're using AI tools.

>> Yeah, that's fascinating. Uh let's talk about people who don't have entrepreneurial ambitions, but they're like, I want to work for a company. Uh

your hiring strategy at Anthropic has changed recently, right? You're hiring

more highlevel people. Is that right?

>> It's a kind of a shift. So the way I think about it is you want people that um are going to be defined more about the problems that they want to solve and how they can creatively solve them than

a very specific sort of I know JavaScript and I'm going to do work in this exact um environment. And so I'm still really drawn to the folks that on the weekends um or in their you know

spare time are prototyping ideas. They

came up with something they're bringing that even to the interview process. you

know, some of our product managers that we've talked to have had like a culture of experimentation that they've been working through. And I think that's very

working through. And I think that's very uh very interesting. I really look for that when I'm hiring. Interesting thing

is it's not so different than when I was hiring for Instagram. The people I always gravitated towards were ones that, you know, if you talk to them on a Monday morning, tell you all about the new thing that they got interested.

Doesn't have to even be techreated, but there is that sort of curiosity, >> excitement. Yeah.

>> excitement. Yeah.

>> Exactly. And I still absolutely look for look for that as well. And then in terms of the kind of makeup of the teams that we want to build, you know, we we haven't had a like summer internship program. So, we've tended less to hire

program. So, we've tended less to hire the like kind of fresh college grads, but I've in talking to a lot of people who uh maybe are going through college now or recent graduates, you know, they're also enabling themselves via AI

to sort of understand the market, understand the dynamics, be entrepreneurial in their own way, even if they're not starting their own companies and then coming into companies and telling that story.

>> How do you learn that? How do you learn how to become entrepreneurial or generate ideas? Are you teaching your

generate ideas? Are you teaching your kids that?

>> I well I mean our kids are pretty young.

I do try to to to encourage the idea of like observe the world and be you know open to what is there. You know the thing I did early on was I had a little yeah little notebook that I would carry around everywhere and basically just

always kind of writing and ideiating and like making space for that sort of quiet ideiation time you know is is really useful. One of the the ways I've seen

useful. One of the the ways I've seen people use Claude, you know, if you ask Claude for one idea, it'll generate an idea. Maybe it'll be a good one. But the

idea. Maybe it'll be a good one. But the

thing that's unique about it is it can also generate 50 or 100 ideas. So

practice that I find is useful is give it, you know, five or 10 and then ask it to fill in the next 30 and maybe one of those sparks something else. There's a

lot of research where um asking people to brainstorm together in a room is not as effective as asking one person to write down 10 ideas and pass those 10 ideas to the next person. Have them um kind of generate the next 10. So you can

simulate that same process but with AI.

Now >> what is your ritual uh for generating ideas? You said quiet time. Do you go on

ideas? You said quiet time. Do you go on a walk or >> walks are really helpful for me? I also

just like any kind of repeated action I really like. like I got one of those

really like. like I got one of those Pelaton rowing machines and I found something you're like okay it's a very repetitive action but then your mind can kind of start wandering and and start thinking about what those different things and and also you need to give

your brain the opportunity to make new connections while you're not focusing on it and then maybe later it'll come and say oh yeah that that actually does connect really well >> is it like every day that you make time for this >> I wish it were every day it's more

probably like once or twice a week these days um but I always every time I do it I'm like I really should be doing this you know more regular and all of a sudden be excited to like sit down and like put pen to paper and then share that with the team.

>> What about uh going back to kids? I have

two small kids and sometimes I read these articles where like oh people who just graduated from college are struggling to find jobs because a lot of entry level jobs being replaced with AI and I'm like okay I'm worrying about

myself but now I have to worry about them as well. Uh what are you teaching your kids? What do you think they're

your kids? What do you think they're going to do in 10 years when they go out uh to the job market?

>> Yeah, it's super far hard to predict like what that market looks like right a six and a four-year-old. So, it's going to be the the what might change a lot and even some of the how will change, but I think there's a few things that

are kind of worth calling out. One is

talked a little bit before about being curious and observant about the world.

That remains really powerful. They did

this um uh uh whole like whole school event at my um kids school around like uh even having the kindergarteners observe what could be better about the school and then like create posters about like ideas about how to improve

them. That's a great mental exercise for

them. That's a great mental exercise for kids >> and like to even ask that question, you know, and some of the ideas are like creative and some of them are kind of silly, but even like having that mentality is something I think will serve anybody well as they grow up cuz

that's a change that you could try to make within your school or your community or your company and and and so forth. So I think that piece matters and

forth. So I think that piece matters and I think the other one that should remain constant like there was a lot of energy around like learn to code everybody should learn to code and I think too many people interpreted that as like you

should learn Python and it's like yes you can learn Python that's going to be helpful through to some things but more than that it's can you think in terms of systems can you think systematically and

the folks that internalized that I think even with the advent of AI generating coding you can still apply those same techniques were the ones that were just Oh yeah, I learned to code and now I'm like feeling a drift because of that. So

I think what I hope to encourage in my kids is that that sense of curiosity and observation and then also this ability to think in terms of systems like how do these things interrelate? you know,

whenever they um they got because of all the politics and news, they were like interested in tariffs and like my wife had a really wonderful sort of interactive example of like how you know

interdependent economies might interact and you could see their eyes kind of their gears kind of. So that kind of like explain the system, don't just explain the facts.

>> Love that. Uh can we talk a little bit about your English because I started my YouTube journey talking about English because I'm originally from Russia. I

came with an accent and then I learned how to speak like an American. You sound

like an American. Like how did that happen?

>> I think it was a couple of things. So

one was I was interested in music from a very early age and especially like American and British bands. So I loved Oasis. Actually going to go see them in

Oasis. Actually going to go see them in a couple weeks. I'm excited. But I never saw them. Are they coming here? They're

saw them. Are they coming here? They're

coming to Pasadena. So I'm going to play. Um, but like if you're singing

play. Um, but like if you're singing that language, you know, you have to kind of hear, you know, for it to even rhyme or sound good, you have to kind of hear yourself. And so I think music was

hear yourself. And so I think music was a big part of it as well. And then we moved around a bunch when I was a kid and and the one constant were international schools. And so, you know,

international schools. And so, you know, starting from a fairly early age, I was I was bilingual. Um, but only lived in the States when I turned 18. And so

there was some words that I had never really said out loud because I just read them and then um internalized them over here. But it is funny. I mean we've had

here. But it is funny. I mean we've had maybe we've had this experience too where now you know I'm been here for a while. I'm a citizen here now but will

while. I'm a citizen here now but will never feel fully like I'm from here because I grew up in Brazil but when I go to Brazil I don't feel fully there.

So kind of from both and from neither now.

>> Yeah that's super cool. Uh I wanted to ask for advice for all the immigrants who are watching. Do you think it make if you want to build company in AI, do you think it makes sense to move to Silicon Valley or again with AI does it

matter where you are?

>> I think the barrier to creating products has really really you know shortened where now you know before in Brazil especially when I was growing up there there wasn't really a talent market of really good engineers. I mean now there is much more because there's been

generations of companies that have been created but that might not be the case for every single kind of city or every single country. AI can definitely help

single country. AI can definitely help there as well. There's also such a broader uh set of you know information and content around what to look for in a co-founder. How do you think about that

co-founder. How do you think about that initial idea? How do you build from

initial idea? How do you build from there? How do you market? And what I've

there? How do you market? And what I've been really excited about is, you know, whenever I talk to, for example, Brazilian entrepreneurs where I'm from who are understanding uniquely Brazilian problems or uniquely Brazilian

opportunities around our unique payment systems, you know, how uh Brazilian the economy works like the public safety questions and then applying AI or applying technology to those problems. I

think there is a tremendous opportunity there and one of the things I get excited about is in the past if you had some an idea there your only path would have been well I hope I can go fund

raise from Silicon Valley VCs. I think

there's much more of an opportunity to um build that locally and then try to fundra you don't need funds to build an >> you can at least get to that point where you've gotten something exciting >> wanted to wrap up the language part.

Yeah.

>> Do you think language learning is going to be replaced by AI? I really think about this because, you know, I um I've been out of Brazil for long enough where all of the sort of like colloquialism or

slang has moved on and I just haven't lived there in a long time. And so I've used even though I fluent in Portuguese, I'll now use Claude and say, "Hey, I'm about to send this to somebody who's like my age, like do I sound old or do I

sound like out of date?" And he'll be like, "Well, you might want to use this kind of uh language instead or something, you know, kind of nuance there." I still think the the value of

there." I still think the the value of learning the nuances of language is is still important. You know, we went to

still important. You know, we went to Korea with a lot of the anthropic team in March and Cloud is actually quite good at Korean. Um, we heard from people on the ground that it's the best of the at the of the models at Korean, but even

so, they said it still sounds like a really cool Korean that like grew up in LA and then like moved back. And I was like, that's nuance. Like, I'm not sure >> American vibes.

>> Yeah. So, how do we like uh continue to push that as well? But you know we're definitely getting to the point where that sort of vision of like you can be in a country and uh you know interact you know that with

>> yeah AI is going to become natural at some point and then do you think there's going to be a wearable that we're wearing and it just interacts for you listens for you and >> I think so although there's also the

value of having like technologyfree interactions and so there's I think always still going to be that the appeal of right I actually learned this language I'm going to go and be with somebody in full presence rather than

feel like we're being intermediated. by

technology.

>> Uh do you have any rituals? Uh any hard nos because you're a dad, you're a husband, but you're also a CPO at this huge company. Can you talk about your

huge company. Can you talk about your day-to-day?

>> Yeah, I really focus on you know the routines that kind of anchor my day are um you know for a long time I resisted being a morning person, but now I've just realized I'm like >> in the US you have to. It's like 4 4 a.m. people everywhere.

a.m. people everywhere.

>> Yeah. And the kids, you know, that they're going to start school at 8:00.

then you got to get up early. But we

have breakfast together and we wake up early enough where we actually have time to dedicate to breakfast and that ends up being like this really great morning ritual and sometimes we'll also do, you know, like longer dinners with the kids

and like get to download the day. But

those are more unpredictable. Sometimes

they're exhausted and they just want to get through it and go into, you know, bedtime. So breakfast is a more reliable

bedtime. So breakfast is a more reliable kind of opportunity to kind of set intentions and think about the day. So

we'll we'll always we'll always kind of anchor on that and then we read to them every night. And that's been fun to see

every night. And that's been fun to see the evolution from, you know, you're reading your very simple board books to now picking up these stories and and then now our six-year-old can sort of start reading to our four-year-old, which is also very cute.

>> Oh, that's the best. They can take care of themselves.

>> Yeah, it's kind of that. So I think like those that that start and the start and finish anchors are really valuable. So

like no matter what, you know, even if later I'm going to have to pick back some project that I'm doing, like really stopping and spending that time and like anchoring either side of the day has been great.

>> Anything around travel? Do you have to travel a lot or >> the travel pieces I've tried to do? One

uh that was a newer thing and it's not even using very much AI, but I discovered time shifter this year and it's been like the biggest changer.

Yeah, it's like the jet lag thing. And

uh when we were in Vivate actually where we met, I used that app going, you know, into that trip and it would, you know, the rest of the team would laugh at me because I was like, "All right, everybody, stop drinking coffee. It's,

you know, 3:00 in the afternoon and, you know, start taking this, take melatonin, but it really worked." So now I'm like a real uh believer in in that kind of uh piece.

>> Couple of final questions. Do you ever wake up at night and think like, "Oh my god, where the world is going with AI?"

like because you see all the headlines, right, and all the things happening. Are

you optimistic or pessimistic?

>> I'm generally optimistic, but I'm also um maybe a cautious optimism or like that um it's optimism if you believe you can actually uh help steer things

towards a good outcome. So, one of the biggest things I want to do coming out of the artifact experience, I knew I wanted to go work at a frontier model lab. I thought that that's what you know

lab. I thought that that's what you know the maximum impact I was going to have in the next few years but I really wanted to be somewhere where I felt really aligned with the you know the founding team and the kind of core

ethics of the company around how they thought about scaling AI right so it's not just build the most powerful AI you possibly can it's also dedicate effort to understanding how these models work and how we can control them and how we

can responsibly scale them and so um there's definitely you know inside anthropic and outside a lot of conversations around like well this could be really positive for humanity.

It also could go quite badly and there's going to be economic impacts, there's going to be labor impacts, there's models that we don't understand yet and how how they scale. Um, so I wanted to be somewhere where we were also asking

and working on those questions alongside the you know more purely like let's just make the models >> really good. So, do you think do you think we're going to have universal basic income at some stage? And would

companies like Anthropic sponsor it or >> Yeah, I think that like how we help society navigate is very much an open question. I think that the the the big

question. I think that the the the big open question that we'll also have to tackle is what is where do people draw meaning from in a place where not everybody has to work anymore like what is the source of both meaning and

challenges and is it you know finding ways in which people stay engaged? Is it

that a lot of people will be entrepreneurial? As you mentioned, not

entrepreneurial? As you mentioned, not everybody is going to have that kind of drive. And so for those folks, what is

drive. And so for those folks, what is the, you know, what is the community that they find? What is their personal challenge that they find even beyond that that retains that meaning?

>> What do you think?

>> I think, you know, I look to sports as a kind of an interesting example where we draw a lot of um meaning and um sort of uh like high stakes from an environment

that is actually completely fabricated.

And so not everything should be exactly like sports, but whether it's, you know, uh who's contributing the most to their city or their community or who's like mastered this particular thing or even

artistic pursuits like, you know, um getting really into art or music or something like that. I find uh inspiration in those fields and maybe more of people will draw meaning from

those kinds of pursuits where the yard stick is not necessarily how much money did you make or is your company at the top of the leaderboard but more around okay I have some personal yard stick that I'm working towards

>> a hobby like some like that sounds like a dream life right when you can just focus on your hobby and have all the basics >> and if there's enough of the you know challenge or meaning in there to still to still matter.

>> Yeah. What are your top three favorite AI apps? Um, that's a good question. Of

AI apps? Um, that's a good question. Of

course, Cloud Code. I spent a lot of time like coding in Cloud Code and and and doing that. One interesting one I've been using, um, uh, you know, for a long time, I would like, you know, log my, uh, meals and like my macros and

protein. It's always like such a huge

protein. It's always like such a huge like annoyance where you're like, I don't know, I'm going to like estimate and like what's the portion size? And

all these years of computer vision research, I think, just got completely taken over by just feeding them into an LLM. And so, um, I've been using like an

LLM. And so, um, I've been using like an AI powered meal tracking app that does such a good you just take a photo and you go back to your life and >> it has all your proteins and everything >> and it's amazing and it like estimates

your your um, uh, like portion sizes, etc. levels. Um, but what I love is it's

etc. levels. Um, but what I love is it's actually very much a uh technology that hopefully it makes me healthier, but also just helps me stay present where I'm not spending like the extra 5

minutes on my phone finding the thing and it can just be like take a photo like move on and then and then kind of go on and go from there as well. Um, and

then last but not least, like I also just like um anything that has to do with learning. So like any like AI

with learning. So like any like AI powered learning. I've been enjoying

powered learning. I've been enjoying both my kids using Dual Lingo ABC now to learn some of the alphabet but also seeing what they've been doing for example as like advancing language learning. So anything that like brings

learning. So anything that like brings in that kind of AI powered uh you know conversational piece within cloud we launched learning mode recently to like not just give people answers but help

people understand and learn and kind of iterate from there as well.

>> Thank you so much Michael. Very

inspiring. Thank you. Take it there.