Amodei uses direct communication to maintain Anthropic’s culture

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 2:17:06

   find it, to actually write it. But I actually think about this in a broader way. I actually think it relates to the culture of the company. So I probably spend a third, maybe 40% of my time making sure the culture of Anthropic is good. As Anthropic has gotten larger, it's gotten harder to just, you know, get involved in like, you know, directly involved in like the training of the models, the launch of the models, the building of the products.

2. 2:17:29

   Like it's 2,500 people. It's like, you know, there's just, you know, I have certain instincts, but like there's only, you know, it's very difficult to get involved in every single detail. You know, I like, I try as much as possible. But one thing that's very leveraged is making sure Anthropic is a good place to work. People like working there. Everyone thinks of themselves as team members. Everyone works together instead of against each other.

3. 2:17:54

   And, you know, we've seen as some of the other AI companies have grown without naming any names. we're starting to see decoherence and people fighting each other. And I would argue there was even a lot of that from the beginning, but that it's gotten worse. But I think we've done an extraordinarily good job, even if not perfect, of holding the company together, making everyone feel the mission, that we're sincere about the mission, and that everyone has faith that everyone else there is working for the right reason, that we're a team, that people aren't trying to get ahead at each other's expense or backstab each other, which again, I think happens a lot at some of the other places. And how do you make that the case? I mean, it's a lot of things. It's me, it's Daniela who runs the company day to day, it's the co-founders,

4. 2:18:41

   it's the other people we hire, it's the environment we try to create. But I think an important thing in the culture is I, and the other leaders as well, but especially me, have to articulate what the company is about, why it's doing what it's doing, what its strategy is, what its values are, what its mission is, and what it stands for. And, you know, when you get to 2,500 people, you can't do that person by person. You have to write or you have to speak to the whole company.

5. 2:19:12

   This is why I get up in front of the whole company every two weeks and speak for an hour. It's actually, I mean, I wouldn't say I write essays internally. I do two things. One, I write this thing called a DVQ, Dario Vision Quest. I wasn't the one who named it that. That's the name it received. And it's one of these names that I kind of, I tried to fight it because it made it sound like I was like going off and smoking peyote or something.

6. 2:19:35

   But the name just stuck. So I get up in front of the company every two weeks. I have like a three or four page document. And I just kind of talk through like three or four different topics about what's going on internally. the, you know, the, the models we're producing, the products, the outside industry, the world as a whole, as it relates to AI and geopolitically in general, you know, just some mix of that.

7. 2:19:58

   And I just go through very, very honestly, I just go through and I just, I just say, you know, this, this is what I'm thinking. This is what anthropic leadership is thinking. And then I answer questions and, and that direct connection, I think has a lot of value that is hard to achieve when you're passing things down the chain, you know, six, six levels deep. Um, uh, and you know, uh, large fraction of the company comes, comes to attend either, either in person or, um, either in person or virtually.

8. 2:20:26

   And it, you know, it really means that you can communicate a lot. And then the other thing I do is I just, you know, I have a channel in Slack where I just write a bunch of things and comment a lot. Um, and often that's in response to, you know, just things I'm seeing at the company or questions people ask, or like, you know, we do internal surveys and there are things people are concerned about. And so I'll write them up. And I'm like, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm very honest about these things. You know, I just, I just say them very directly. And the point is to get a reputation of telling the company the truth about what's happening, to call things what they are, to acknowledge problems, to avoid the sort of corpo speak, the kind of defensive communication that often is necessary in public because, you know, the world is very large and full of people

9. 2:21:14

   who are, you know, interpreting things in bad faith. But, you know, if you have a company of people who you trust and we try to hire people that we trust, then, you know, you can really just be entirely unfiltered. And, you know, I think that's an enormous strength of the company. It makes it a better place to work. It makes people more, you know, more of the sum of their parts and increases the likelihood that we accomplish the mission because everyone is on the same page about the mission and everyone is debating and discussing how best to accomplish the mission.

10. 2:21:45

    Well, in lieu of an external DarioVision quest, we have this interview.