Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:25:42 · Fiona Fung, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:25:42] S1: I'm going to steal your quote. [00:25:46] S0: Yeah, please do. Don't do all the scary things. Maybe don't jump off a cliff, but maybe in career moves, it's probably a good choice. So kind of following this path, something that I know that is important to you, something you think about that I also think about is this kind of gap that is forming between people that are just leaning into AI, killing it, doing super well, and then people that are just not. And this is a scary time for people that may be left behind in this new world that is emerging. I know you spent a lot of time with small businesses; that's a big passion of yours, to help people learn how to use AI in their work. Talk about just how you think about that and what maybe we should be thinking about to help folks stay, not fall behind basically.
00:26:31 · Fiona Fung, Lenny Rachitsky
[00:26:31] S1: Oh, I love this. Yeah, it's one of my passion topics because I kind of mentioned growing up in Canada and I moved there when I was a kid. I was born in Hong Kong so I didn't speak any English and my parents had to work all the time. So my grandma who is the best grandmother anyone could have ever asked for. I know everybody thinks their grandma's the best, but I really was so lucky I had the best grandma. She moved with us just to take care of me while my parents were working, but neither of us spoke English, but I was able to learn how to speak English by going to school and speaking with classmates. And when I think about my grandma, it was very alienating for her to be in a new country where, and back then it wasn't as walkable. But one summer I remembered we just happened to find this little yarn shop that was owned by a lady that also spoke Cantonese. And so that became every week we would go to this yarn shop the summer. My grandma found her knitting circle and then I think I learned how to do macrame, which I think is having a comeback by the way. It's always funny to see what's- [00:27:32] S0: Macrame coming back. [00:27:33] S1: Macrame. I think, yeah. Heard it here first on Lenny's podcast. I think macrame's coming back. [00:27:38] S0: All right.
00:27:40 · Fiona Fung
[00:27:40] S1: But that was probably where my love came from. I'm like, oh wow, this little small business created this wonderful sense of community. And I've been really fortunate to become friends with all of the small businesses that I love. So that's kind of like where the passion comes from. And then how it happened was I was using Cowork for my own business expensing travel. I don't know what it is. I really don't like doing business expensing. And when I was using Cowork, it was magic. I'm like, "All these things that I don't like to do, like Cowork is doing for me." And I'm like, "Wait a minute, all my friends," and honestly, small business owners, they really bust their butt. They work incredibly hard and sometimes might be operating on really small margins. And so I thought if Claude Cowork is so good at helping me do my little business travel expense, this would be huge for it. Because I see my friends sometimes sitting at the bar with stacks of bills and all they're doing is invoicing and expensing and I think nobody actually really likes to do it. So that's kind of where it came from. And then so yeah, I remembered helping a couple of them onboard and it was also very humbling to see them go through our onboarding flow. Actually, they found some really good bugs. So it was really like a win-win, but it was also delightful for me because they also use Cowork in ways that I wouldn't have thought about because I was all fixated on, look at how it is amazing with PDFs and invoice. And then one of my friends who runs two restaurants, she's like, "Oh my gosh, this folder I have is like a junk drawer of, like it's basically our documents folder. It just becomes this junk drawer of every, or downloads, just like the kitchen junk drawer." And she's like, "I know I have a few menus in here and I can't find it." And I'm like, "Well, let's ask Cowork." So we gave Cowork access to directory, found the menus. And then she use in a really unique way. She goes, "I want to make sure I keep my prices reasonable for locals and tourists." So she goes, "Hey, Claude, look across my style of cuisine in this area. Is it comparable?" And it came back with really cool, almost like market analysis. And she goes, "Hey, I actually just went to that restaurant in Seattle and that was pretty good." So I learned something every time.
00:29:45 · Fiona Fung, Lenny Rachitsky
And yeah, they've been giving me great feedback as well. [00:29:48] S0: So the question then is just like, how do we spread this to everybody? Because a lot of people are just like, "I don't have time for this" or "I hate AI." It's just like, I want to ignore it. Is it like talking, is it just talking about these, sharing examples? What do you think? What's a way to make a dent in this problem?
00:30:07 · Fiona Fung
[00:30:07] S1: For all of us, especially to your listeners, are probably very AI-pilled. If there's anyone either in their community or their family that has like... I would start with what has something that you really have felt has made a meaningful life change for you with the AI tools and then seeing if that is a conversation starter for... Because for me, AI is a tool. Again, it's the whole light in the dark. I totally understand the frustrating part as well. But for me, I'm also felt like knowledge is power. Have to learn how to use the tools because it could actually be the light part of that light and dark equation. So I think that's something that I would love everybody's help with, whether it's a community member or even if there's a business you really like and you think, "Hey, have you ever..." It's a little awkward to start. I remember when I first reached out to my friends, I'm like, because I don't talk about what I do with them a lot, but I'm like, "Hey, I kind of work in AI. Can I..." It's even unnatural for me to do it because I'm like, "Hey, can I show you what Cowork is possible?" But we ended up having a lot of fun. So yeah, I would love for, like that conversation starter would be great of, yeah, because I just want to make sure we keep sharing the knowledge and making the tool equitable because if not, I'm concerned that the divide grows larger and larger.
00:31:29 · Lenny Rachitsky
[00:31:29] S0: Me too. I find that sharing use cases, as you said, is so powerful. I was just using Cowork the other day to fill out my son's camp forms and just sharing that on Twitter, just like a lot of people are like, "Oh wow, I didn't think about that." Yeah. It's just like these little things you don't think about that Cowork and Claude Code can do. Kind of along those lines, speaking of Cowork, if you think about it, Anthropic has been super early on uncovering these really big opportunities ahead of everyone else. For example, coding. So far ahead, like realizing this is a huge market. Whether it was intentional or not, it was just like, whoa, that's maybe the biggest new business opportunity in history. And then Cowork is a great example, just leaning into knowledge work. Let's just solve all knowledge work. Why not? So far ahead of everyone else. Another element is it feels like a focus on the personality of the model, something you all were very early on, just how important that is, not just for the experience, but just also the intelligence and success of the model. What is it that you think Anthropic and the teams do differently that allows you to uncover these opportunities and then just go big on them before other labs, let's say?