Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:10:11 · Lenny Rachitsky, Dianne Penn
[01:10:11] S1: Okay. I'm glad. I'm glad. And also it was going to be interesting once AI is so good, we're like, "I don't know who wrote that." But to your point, sometimes we actually want to know that it's AI. That's really interesting. I never thought of it that way. The other interesting part of this is that there's that comedian who was joking that we're on a plane and the WiFi's down and we're just like, "What the hell? The WiFi's not working on this plane. This sucks. How dare you?" When you're in a tube in the sky flying like a bird. And how dare you complain that the WiFi doesn't work? Your point is there's so much advancement and so much power. We can't fix it all. We can't make it all work the best possible and so basically writing has been not the priority, and it feels like there's more investment happening there. [01:10:53] S0: Yeah. I think tone and character is a priority. I think it's this advancement of the technology is a work in progress and so we see a leap or an emergence of a jump in agentic behaviors. And so that is a new normal. And then these other capabilities needs to continue improving. And I think once we improve, let's say, writing and tone and character, we probably will say, how do we have Claude be even more proactive? Proactivity is an opportunity, and that's human nature. We want to make ourselves better. We want to make this technology better and I think we're applying it to AI, which is the right thing. We should be making it better.
01:10:53 · Dianne Penn, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:10:53] S0: Yeah. I think tone and character is a priority. I think it's this advancement of the technology is a work in progress and so we see a leap or an emergence of a jump in agentic behaviors. And so that is a new normal. And then these other capabilities needs to continue improving. And I think once we improve, let's say, writing and tone and character, we probably will say, how do we have Claude be even more proactive? Proactivity is an opportunity, and that's human nature. We want to make ourselves better. We want to make this technology better and I think we're applying it to AI, which is the right thing. We should be making it better. [01:11:41] S1: I want to ask you a couple questions I like to ask folks working at the very center of the future that is coming. One is, where do you think human brains will continue to be most valuable over the years? I know Anthropic's mission and vision will reach AGI, a super intelligence. So in the future, maybe nowhere. But before we get there- Intelligence. So in the future, maybe nowhere, but before we get there, where do you think human brains will continue to be most valuable, as we approach that timeline?
01:12:09 · Dianne Penn
[01:12:09] S0: We started to talk about making Claude and models better at judgment, especially in the last year or so. I think judgment is an area where, it's accumulation of so much nuance and so much experience. And these systems haven't experienced as much as humans have. And so I think that hard-earned judgment is a area for product leaders and just generally will continue to be really critical. There are so many things AIs can build. Which one are the things that an org like Lab should build? A lot of that requires human judgment, persistence, so proactivity. These are all traits that are beyond just general capabilities, but just behaviors and characteristics of people at that level of how do you get to the best solutions? How do you create the best experiences? So I think those types of traits are actually the tactile traits that I think will continue to be important. I think there is also still a lot of capabilities and subject matter expertise as well. I think software engineering has been really transformed by AI. I think there's areas like biology, life sciences. These are all things that we're just at the foot of the exponential on. Maybe software engineering, we're on the exponential. On some of these other areas, we're not quite there yet. And so I think you're seeing us shift things like Claude Science investing in these areas because those are areas that I think is just bring this technology to society and having a positive benefit for society. So I think there's a lot more to go there.
01:14:11 · Lenny Rachitsky, Dianne Penn
[01:14:11] S1: Another question I want to ask is, as someone with kids, how do you think about what you are encouraging them to learn? Where do you think you're going to nudge them to be successful in this wild new world that we're entering? [01:14:27] S0: I actually think it's a lot of the same traits you and I probably grew up with, which is curiosity for learning, persistence, believing in your own inner voice. Developing and then believing in your own inner voice. I have a four-year-old, I have a eight-year-old. It's on me to help them develop their inner voice. And whether that's being opinionated and taking a stance to me and developing that, encouraging that, I think that those types of skill sets are things that is important in the future and having their own individual voice. [01:15:10] S1: That is so interesting. It's so related to the answer you had when I asked about how to avoid brain rot essentially and over-relying on AI, which is just keep focused on your own point of view and your own perspective before you over-rely on AI. And just this idea you're describing of building that in kids is really important. That is interesting. And I love how all this connects judgment, persistence, a point of view of your own. [01:15:34] S0: Yeah. [01:15:35] S1: Both for kids and also adults. [01:15:37] S0: [inaudible 01:15:37]. Yeah. Anything- [01:15:37] S1: Anything- [01:15:37] S0: You think about for your ...
01:15:37 · Dianne Penn, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:15:37] S0: You think about for your ... [01:15:39] S1: Oh, man. Well, the question I'm thinking about is just when to get them on some AI-y thing. I have a three-year-old, so it's pretty early for that. But how do you onboard them to this crazy thing? I was at an event recently and a bunch of parents were talking about how they think about AI and their kids. And one person had a really interesting approach, which is keep them on the very early models so that they still have to struggle a bit and not get all the answers immediately. Thought that was interesting, like an open source local model, not Fable. [01:16:11] S0: I like it. [01:16:12] S1: Yeah. [01:16:12] S0: Yeah. [01:16:12] S1: Yeah. And curiosity is something. I keep mentioning Ben Mann, but his answer, actually, to this question has always stuck with me, which is curiosity and also just he's a big fan of Montessori, which is what we're encouraging for our kids. So there's something there. Maybe a last question, just along these lines, something Fiona Fung actually suggested ask you, who was recently on the podcast. How do you stay just recharged and not burnout, being in the center of this crazy storm of AI, as a mom working in ... We're seeing the research work at Anthropic. We're living through the most unprecedented time, working at ... Just being on the outside of Anthropic, it's crazy. I don't even know what it's like to be on the inside. What have you learned about avoiding burnout, staying recharged, staying sane during the middle of all this?
01:17:01 · Dianne Penn
[01:17:01] S0: In 2024, we shipped four models in the whole year or four series of models. And I think we did more than that volume in just Q2 of this year. I think I've been really lucky with the team that we've grown and built, both the stakeholders on the research side and within our research product management team. I think that one of the magical parts about approaching all of this is that it's not an individual sport. There's a sense of radical ownership and team collaboration that, I think sometimes it does feel like a high performance sport because you're in very critical decisions. There's new information about users, about training, and you have to make recommendations and judgments and decisions very quickly. And nobody can do that sustainably by themselves. And so I think what's really helped is having a team that is incredible, who looks out for each other, who the night before a launch, even if they're not the core DRI on that model, will stay up and help the DRI to review the blog post and make edits and come up with better demos and knowing to be each other's extra hand. I think it's very easy, if you take all of this change on your own shoulders, to feel like you're alone and to feel like you have to do everything. But I think one of the magical parts of Anthropic is this ability for us to figure out what are those opportunities to help each other and actually then taking the next smile of mind melding. We called it entering the hive mind. There was an article about this. And I think part of that is just that allows the team to replenish. I was just on PTO in June. It's not just that you can take PTO and you come back to 3X the amount of things to do. It's actually that you can take PTO and know the team can figure out the right things to do and that we individually can watch out for each other. So I think that's a big part. I'm really lucky, just personally. Also, my partner is really supportive. This is year six of me working in AI, so Amazon and then Anthropic. And so he sees how much I just love the technology and what this can do. And that really helps, I think, also from a personal perspective as well.