Anthropic CPO: How to Start a $100M Company as a Solo Founder | Mike Krieger

20:50It's like, 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 have the relationships because 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 with.

21:19Marina Mogilko:Yeah. And I like how you said in one of your interviews that every product has this vibe. Yes. And if you're building something with fashion, then it definitely has your vibe, right? That some people are going to connect with and that's going to be yours. Exactly. Right. And And 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 the most potential? I think people are still fundamentally human and still have very human needs. So I think a lot of the aspects I still think about being really important are, for example, people's health, both physical and mental.

21:53And even though there's the beginning of AI helping with those aspects, I think there's so much more potential around that as well. 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, how we can continue to evolve kind of as individuals, but it's also as teams or as partners. So that's another an area that I think I'm excited for more companies to get formed in their fitness and performance coaching is another place that's important there, too. I think there's also going to be this renaissance of being, you know, into the physical or the real world.

22:27You 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 require AI, but done right, they could be encouraged by AI.

22:55Marina Mogilko:What should entrepreneurs focusing on? Is it getting expertise in the niche where they're building or just being focused on 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 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. So 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.

23:36That 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 U.S. that aren't the most tech forward necessarily, but 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.

24:07Marina Mogilko:What about marketing? Because it feels like, okay, ideas. I can generate a lot of ideas. Claude can help me. Then I build a product with Claude or Replit or Lovable. What's going to happen to marketing? Everyone's talking about like, hey, what should be on social media? Because otherwise, how do you market your idea? What do you think? That's definitely evolved. When we were building Instagram, the way you got your product out there, especially a social product like Instagram, was for us, people sharing their Instagram creations to Facebook and to Twitter at the time, and then seeing that link and then finding that.

24:41It's definitely shifted to much more of this sort of creator-led, you know, whether it's Instagram or on TikTok and people telling those stories 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 still like 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 happen. But I completely agree that what will also differentiate beyond an understanding of a market is also the ability to tell the story around that.

25:18Marina Mogilko:Yeah. What was going to happen to content, you think, in two or three years? Because my feed is like maybe 50 % AI, something like crazy going on, or I see an AI generated image. it's been 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 managed to generate, I don't think that's going to generate following, or I think it's not going to generate like a real presence on these platforms.

26:12Whereas I remember there was 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 kind of a perspective. And I think the same thing needs to be true to succeed as a creator, even if you're using AI tools. When you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job post the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications, and more.

26:49Spend less time searching and more time I'm actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

27:07Marina Mogilko:Yeah, that's fascinating. Let's talk about people who don't have entrepreneurial ambitions, but they're like, I want to work for a company. Your hiring strategy at Anthropik has changed recently, right? you're hiring more high level people. Is that right? It's kind of a shift. So the way I think about it is you want people that 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 work in this exact environment. And so I'm still really drawn to the folks that on the weekends or in their spare time are prototyping ideas.

27:46Like 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, very interesting. I really look for that when I'm hiring. The 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, you talk to them on a Monday morning, tell you all about the new thing that they got interested. It doesn't have to be tech related, but there is that sort of curiosity.

28:13Excitement. 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 haven't had a like summer internship program, so we've tended less to hire the like kind of fresh college grads. But I've been talking to a lot of people who 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.

28:44Marina Mogilko:How do you learn that? How do you learn how to become entrepreneurial or generate ideas? Are you teaching your kids that? I mean, the kids are pretty young. I do try 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, you know, a little notebook that I would carry around everywhere and basically just always kind of writing and ideating and like making space for that sort of quiet ideation time, you know, is really useful. One of the ways I've seen people use Claude, you know, if you ask Claude for one idea, it'll generate an idea.

29:18Maybe 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 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 kind of generate the next 10. So you can simulate that same process, but with AI now.

29:44Marina Mogilko:What is your ritual for generating 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. I got one of those peloton rowing machines. And I found some of these, you're like, okay, it's like very repetitive action. But then your mind can kind of start wandering and start thinking about what those different things are. 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 actually does connect really well.

30:11Marina Mogilko: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. But I always, every time I do, I'm like, I really should be doing this, you know, more regularly. And I'll also be excited to like sit down and like put pen to paper and then share that with the team. What about 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 and now I have to worry about them as well.

30:43Marina Mogilko:What are you teaching your kids? What do you think they're gonna do in 10 years when they go out to the job market? Yeah, it's so far hard to predict like what that market looks like when I was six and a four-year-old. So it's gonna be, 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 whole school event at my kids' school around even having the kindergartners observe what could be better about school and then create posters about ideas about how to improve them.

31:20Marina Mogilko:That's a great mental exercise for kids. And I even asked 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, because that's a change that you could try to make within your school or your community or your company and so 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.

31:49And it's like, yes, you can learn Python. That's going to be helpful to something. But more than that, it's can you think in terms of systems? Can you think systematically? And the folks that internalize that, I think, even with the advent of AI generating coding, you can still apply those same techniques. We're the ones that were just like, oh, yeah, I learned to code. And now I'm like feeling adrift because of that. So I think what I hope to encourage in my kids is that sense of curiosity and observation. And then also this ability to think in terms of systems. Like, how do these things interrelate?

32:18You know, whenever 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 turn. So that kind of like explained the system, don't just explain the facts.

32:37Marina Mogilko:Love that. 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. I loved Oasis. I'm actually going to go see them in a couple of weeks. I'm excited, but I never saw them. Are they coming here? They're coming to Pasadena, so I'm going to reply to that.

33:07But 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 a big part of it as well. And then we moved around a bunch when I was a kid and the one constant were international schools. And so, you know, starting from a fairly early age, I was, I was bilingual, 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 internalized them over here. But it is funny. I mean, we've had, we've had this experience too, or now I've been here for a while.

33:41I'm a citizen here now, but we'll 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.

33:51Marina Mogilko:Yeah, that's super cool. I wanted to ask for advice for all the immigrants who are watching. Do you think if you want to build a 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. We're 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.

34:22AI can definitely help there as well. There's also such a broader set of information and content around what to look for in a co-founder. How do you think about that initial idea? How do you build from 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 unique Brazilian opportunities around our unique payment systems, you know, how Brazilian the economy works, like the public safety questions, and then applying AI or applying technology to those problems.

34:55I think there is a tremendous opportunity there. And one of the things I get excited about is in the past, if you had some idea there, your only path would have been, well, I hope I can go fundraise from Silicon Valley VCs. I think there's much more of an opportunity to build that locally and then try to fundraise if you need to.

35:13Marina Mogilko:You don't need funds to build an MVP now. 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 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 flew it in Portuguese, I'll now use Claude and say, you know, 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?

35:43And I'll be like, well, you might want to use this kind of language instead or something, you know, kind of nuanced there. I still think the value of learning the nuances of languages is still important. You know, we went to Korea with a lot of the Aranthropic team in March. And Claude is actually quite good at Korean. We heard from people on the ground that it's the best of the models at Korean. But even so, they said it still sounds like a really cool Korean that like grew up in L.A. and then like moved back. And I was like, that's nuanced. Like, I'm not sure. American vibes. Yeah. So how do we like continue to push that as well?

36:16But, you know, we're definitely getting to the point where that sort of vision of like you can be in a country and, you know, interact, you know.

36:23Marina Mogilko: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? I think so. Although there's also the value of having like technology free interactions. And so there's, I think, always still going to be that 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. Do you have any rituals, any hard no's because you're a dad, you're a husband, but you're also a CPO at this huge company.

36:56Marina Mogilko:Can you talk about your day to day? Yeah, I really focus on, you know, the routines that kind of anchor my day are, you know, for a long time I resisted being a morning person, but now I've just realized that. In the US, you have to. It's like 4 a.m. people everywhere. Yeah. And the kids, you know, that they're going to start school at eight, 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.

37:25But those are more unpredictable. Sometimes they're exhausted and they just want to get through it and go into bedtime. time. So breakfast is a more reliable kind of opportunity to kind of set intentions and think about the day. So we'll always kind of anchor on that. And then we read to them every night. And that's been fun to see the evolution from, you know, you're reading your fairly simple board books to now picking up these stories. 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.

37:51Marina Mogilko:They can take care of themselves. Yeah, it's great. You can kind of do that. So I think like those, that start and the the start and finish anchors are really valuable. So like no matter what, you know, even if later I'm gonna 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 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 game changer.

38:18Yeah, it's like the jet lag thing. And when we were in Viva Tech, actually where we met, I used that app going, you know, into that trip And it was, 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, three in the afternoon and, you know, start taking this, take melatonin. But it really worked. So now I'm like a real believer in that kind of piece.

38:39Marina Mogilko: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 also maybe a cautious optimism or like that. It's optimism if you believe you can actually 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 where, you know, the maximum impact I was going to have in the next few years.

39:14But 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 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.

39:45There's going to be labor impacts. There's models that we don't understand yet and how they scale. 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.

39:59Marina Mogilko:So do you think we're going to have universal basic income at some stage? And would companies like Anthropic sponsor it? Yeah, I think that how we help society navigate is very much an open question. I think that the big open question that we'll also have to tackle 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 everybody is going to have that kind of drive. And so for those folks, what is the, you know, what is the community that they find?

40:34What 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 meaning and sort of 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, 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, getting really into art or music or something like that. I find inspiration in those fields and maybe more people will draw meaning from those kinds of pursuits where the yardstick 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 yardstick that I'm working towards.

41:23Marina Mogilko:Yeah, like a hobby. 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 matter. Yeah. What are your top three favorite AI apps? That's a good question. Of course, Cloud Code. I spent a lot of time coding in Cloud Code and doing that. One interesting one I've been using, for a long time, I would log my meals and my macros and protein. It's always such a huge annoyance where you're like, I don't know, I'm going to estimate and 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.

42:01And so 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.

42:07Marina Mogilko:And it has all your proteins and everything. And it's amazing. And it like estimates your, your, um, uh, like portion sizes, et cetera, levels. Um, but what I love is it's actually very much a, uh, uh, technology that hopefully it makes me healthier, but also just helps me stay present where I'm not spending like the extra five 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. And then last one, at least, I also just like anything that has to do with learning. So any AI-powered learning. I've been enjoying both my kids using Duolingo and BC now to learn some of the alphabet, but also seeing what they've been doing, for example, is advancing language learning.

42:48So anything that brings in that kind of AI-powered conversational piece. Within Cloud, we launched Learning Mode recently to not just give people answers, but help people understand and learn and kind of iterate from there as well.

43:02Marina Mogilko:Thank you so much, Mike. Of course, thanks for having me. That was very inspiring. Thank you. Great to be here.