What happens after coding is solved? | Fiona Fung (Manager of the Claude Code and Cowork Teams)

0:00 Anthropic engineers on average ship eight times as much code per quarter as they did compared to 2025. Coding is no longer the bottleneck. It's lift at the ceiling of what anyone is able to do. Everything is now possible, in theory. Now it's about how ambitious can you be. It's always something we ask ourselves, what's better than me doing it? The people that seem to be doing best are taking The most initiative, getting the most practice, have the most agency. We say with high agency is also high accountability. So it's all about making sure folks have the freedom to cook. But then it's also like okay, what's the accountability for it? What's the hypothesis of what you're trying to solve? I'm curious what is lost in this new world of software engineering. Lodging on the Clock Coutine recently we started a pairwise programming lunch. Something you think about is this gap forming between people that are leaning into AI, killing it, and then people that are not super frustrated, fighting, resisting. In terms of frustration, I think sometimes I also see a little bit of fear. For anything that there is a fear, my advice is lean in and as What can I do about it? What is within my control? Today my guest is Fiona Fong.

1:07 Fiona leads the teams behind Claude Code and co work at Anthropic. She oversees both Boris Churney. And Cat Woo. Both of whom who have been on the podcast and whose episodes are in the top ten most listened to episodes of all time. Before Anthropic at Microsoft, Fiona ran the teams that built TypeScript and Visual Studio. After that, she went to Facebook, where she started the Facebook marketplace team, which she took from idea to launch.

1:31 Today, Facebook Marketplace generates over 100 billion dollars in GMV every year. Also, while at Meta, she oversaw work on Meta's first smart glasses product. And then she helped build Orion, their first AR glasses product. Then she went to Instagram, where she led infrastructure, growth, integrity, and safety teams. While at Instagram and at Meta, she oversaw an org of over 500 people. Fiona has been an engineer for over 25 years and as a longtime engineering leader, especially now at Anthropic.

2:01 She has such a unique lens into where things are heading. what's worth paying attention to, and what teams should be thinking about right now as AI transforms the world of building. A huge thank you to Cap Wu, Boris Cherney, and Mohammed Hegazi for suggesting topics and questions for this conversation. Before we get into it, don't forget to check out Lenny's productpass.com for a free year of the hottest and most well crafted AI products in the world. Available exclusively to Lenny's newsletter subscribers. With that, I bring you Fiona.

2:31 Fang. Yeah. Yona, thank you so much. For being here. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me, Lenny.

2:41 So I was at the Claude uh Code with Cloud event uh I don't know, a month ago at this point, and I was and I went to your talk. And I I was just like, Holy shit, I gotta get Theon on this podcast. She's thinking so far ahead of where everybody else is going and what where people are at with AI. So you've been an engineer for twenty five years. I was browsing your LinkedIn. Uh you started at at IBM of all places. Such a different place to be these days.

3:06 And It's just Insane how much the job of an engineer has changed over the past just like two years. It's like a completely different job. Like people may forget a hundred percent of code was written by humans not long ago.

3:19 And now it's getting to a hundred percent of code written by AI. Uh, as Boris uh famously said, coded coding issault. Along these lines there's just this tweet that you guys put out yesterday. Where you showed Uh here's the tweet. Anthropic engineers on average ship.

3:34 eight times as much code per quarter as they did compare it to twenty One to twenty twenty five. We'll show this chart on the screen. It's just like Stable, stable, stable, stable. Shooting off into the moon. So it's just insane how much this role has changed. I'm curious.

3:48 About your kind of path as an engineer going living through this. Having been an engineer for a long time. What have been kind of like the big moments along the way where it's shifted your way of thinking and operating that have led you to to what you do now and how you operate now.

4:03 Oh, I I I love this kind of love walk back in time. Yeah, like IBM working on D B two, the operating system services team. Like back then I was thinking, Oh, how can I how can I be like the uh like what's a hard area of the stack? And I really thought the lower level you go closer to the OS, then it's like more hardcore and you you learn more. So that was a I was really fortunate to get into the IBM internship. Um but the funny thing was I would I think there's even a big shift from IBM to Microsoft. So at IBM it was I think Vim. Like I didn't have an IDE that we use. I think there might have been An an eclipse license, but for some reasons most of us didn't use it. So I remembered it was mainly

4:42 Like Vim and and uh you know, like hand terminal. Debugging. And then when I join Microsoft, I mean, this is how naive I was. I didn't even know about IDEs and such. And and back then you didn't really get to pick teams, like this was early two thousands. Actually, first off, I should say I was so grateful that I landed the internship and the role'cause uh to take us all the way back in time, the dot com bubble burst in two thousand.

5:05 And so for my graduating class, like a lot of the companies weren't hiring and or were having freezes. So I was so fortunate when Microsoft It's gonna be an offer. And so they're like you're gonna work on Visual Studio. I did not even know what Visual Studio was'cause I came from like a Unix school. So I remember asking

5:21 Oh, vis'cause I was thinking about the name Visual Studio. I'm like, Oh, is this like a A better paid program? And I could tell the look of my manager's face, like what is com But then it ended up becoming like the love of my life for the first, you know, eleven years of of my career. But that was the first time I used an IDE. So joining the Visual Studio team. Seeing, Oh wow, like here's an IDE with like

5:42 debuggers and you can set breakpoints and do multi-threaded debugging. Like that was also always mind blowing for me to think about the the stepwise change. Um so yeah, like that was kind of uh the story going for him. I bring to Visual Studio. And then what I really loved actually about Visual Studio. is uh I was on the Visual Studio editor team. So I use a VS editor to build the VS editor.

6:04 And that's where my whole love of dog feeding comes from. Like I I remembered I wanted to first and foremost create a delightful experience not only for myself but for my teammates. 'Cause also if we go back in that time, if you remember I mean, when did Twitter come out? Like was it two Two thousand and

6:21 Six or six. But back then, like before social media. It was also harder for most engineers to um Hear fast customer feedback. Like for sure there you would be use research sessions or we would have customers visit us. Um But you didn't get the rapid feedback that you you you you do nowadays.

6:42 But back then I was so lucky'cause I was on VS. We ourselves gave each other so much rapid feedback'cause We were all heavy VS users on the team. This episode is brought to you by our season's presenting sponsor, Work OS. What do OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, Vercelle, Replit, Sierra, Clay, and hundreds of other winning companies all have in common? They are all powered by WorkOS. If you're building a product for the enterprise, you've felt the pain of integrating single sign on, skim.

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7:40 It's essentially Stripe for Enterprise Features. Visit workOS.com to get started, or just hit up their Slack where they have actual engineers waiting to answer your questions. WorkOS allows you to build faster with delightful APIs. comprehensive docs, and a smooth developer experience. Go to workOS dot com to make your app Enterprise ready today. People think about these milestones along the way of an engineer's journey, and we forget there's also there's been like a lot of transformation over the years. Not quite what we're living through, but just like IDEs, Visual Studio. Uh so I love that I love you reminding us of these moments in uh the history of software engineering that that have changed the the the work in a big way.

8:16 Yeah, when I worked on Visual State back then we also shipped software on C Ds. I I mean before like it and and that's why there were really hard deadlines'cause you had to make sure the software was ready for us to give to manufacturing to then, you know, put on the CDs for th to then put on the shelves. And uh and then so once that was another shift when we actually started to be able to you know, ship software online. And I think that's a interesting thing. And I kind of mentioned this in my talk. It's Before when you like.

8:42 Engineering time was like like really precious resource, but you also have these really hard deadlines, for example, like printing software and CDs. And so back then you would do a lot more planning because You just wanted to make sure given the time you have, you you make the best of it. And that's the shift that, you know, like we're seeing with with uh Claude Code and Cowork is Coding is no longer the bottleneck.

9:04 And so now like you know, you showed up the you showed the the tweet and that graphic. So but now it's all about like where has that shift happened? Like now not only engineers, we we also have designers, PMs, everybody on the clock code team checks and code. So like when not only more people checking in code, but like kind of different disciplines, but also the throughput is so high. How do we think about verification? Like that's kind of this other shift that I'm seeing. Maybe just kind of set this theme that I wanna have for this conversation.

9:31 A lot of people are just wondering what is what is software engineering managing software engineers managing software. And product teams look like. in the future and you are living through that right now. So you mentioned this um Point about

9:44 And more focus on verification, making sure The quality of the code being uh eight X is actually high and something uh that's that you know will work. So Just like let me ask this broad question and let's kinda see where this conversation goes.

9:58 What does a what does an AI pilled software team look like in twenty twenty six? Because the roles are blowing, it's shifting more to this builder. Uh, like I've everybody starts being a a a builder, I would say. The other shift that I've recently done is I actually have a quad code remote session that I enlist in all of our repos. And so this way I have full visibility into the work that everybody's doing.

10:22 And this instance, it also has access to all our Slack channels and and I'll all have access to like how how are the metrics of of everything we track. And so every every month, like I went when like I'll be like, hey, you know what's fun? Like let's let's take a look back. Like and so we'll actually do it together. I'll share my You know, like cloud code. Uh you know, I've share my screen and we we we do our podcode. session and it's just about hey what were the focus areas like what were some of the the products that got shipped how did it do well what were the feedback channels and and so I even though like before I would have just used these sessions to like generate PRs and bug fixes. I actually have these sessions uh to enable me to have conversations with folks that I support.

11:00 Say more about that. This is uh like a management technique, let's say, to help People Uh not just ship. But actually.

11:10 If they're shipping things that have impact is that kind of the idea here, just like use Claw tip. keep on top of all the things people are shipping and then make that a conversation with them. Exactly. So outside of just, you know, the action of shipping is how did it do in market or hey, did we have you know, like did we cause some bugs? And it's okay to of like I have the saying, make new mistakes.

11:31 Like it's okay to make mistakes, just make new ones so that we're always learning'cause If you aim to make zero mistakes, like that probably means you're not, you know Moving fast enough or being a little bit too cautious. And so yeah, by by having Claude, like so then it can also look at like some like for example, actually Yeah, we were j I was just looking at, oh, you know, given some of the, you know, incidents that we have, like let's look across all of this. Can we generate a theme? Like what's a good area investment for us next, especially we think about like

11:57 quality, like uh are we seeing any hot spots of where there could be a gap? I think th that used to be just a much more manual. Uh process, I would say. Like if I look back a year ago, I don't think I would have been able to You know, have some of these insights with Claude.

12:11 Yeah, well partly is because Like there's that. And also people weren't shipping as much. So you could just make a little bulk list. Here's the things I shipped last quarter. This feature, that feature, this feature, that feature. So I think what I'm hearing here is this is like one of the only ways to stay on top of all the things. A teammate is shipping. So this is a really cool thread of just like how you found ways to stay on top of this eight X increase in code.

12:33 What else has worked in helping you and your team stay on top of and maintain quality of all the stuff that y'all are shipping,'cause that's obviously a challenge, a bigger challenge. Yeah. And so definitely like the feedback channels are really important to us, but then we also get a lot of feedback and Like for example, even I myself usually w my my morning ritual would be, you know, I get my morning cup of coffee, and then I look at the feedback channels, and then I try to pick a what are, you know, if I have some maker time, what's something that maybe

13:00 I would be able to help out or would I could like see some gaps like that. It just used to be something I would do every morning. And uh I think maybe a month or two ago we we launched routines. And that's also completely changed. Like now I just have a routine that automates all this for me. And then there's also it's almost like before I would You know, be able to kind of like

13:18 you know, generate some prompts, but now with routines, it's almost like I'm You know, having an agent help me generate the like generate the prompts and the PR. So for example, one is, hey, keep a look on this feedback channel. you know, what are some of the themes? And then like when I wake up, then you know, I have a really good summary of that. And then even some like PRs. That I'll be able to take a look and review. And the feedback channel, where's that feedback coming from? Is that like like emails, Twitter, is that or to combo everything?

13:44 Ah our feedback channels are definitely like we have a lot from internal and but also like emails, channels. Actually everybody uh like when we all get feedback on either like when friends paying us or our LinkedIn or socials, we'll all actually like post all of that in Slack as well. And so and and we also have like of course partnerships, and so we have different channels uh for for all the various sources, but but that's what I mean of I need Claude's help to help me stay on top because there is so much incoming feedback. Got it. Okay, so this is cool. So this is uh uh like a way of working that you've

14:19 built to stay on top of all the stuff shipping, which is this kind of daily ritual slash routine where Ю As a manager. look at what people are saying about the current state of uh cloud code and co work.

14:31 And used to just like okay, someone go fix this, go fix that. Now it's like Here's the PR that'll fix this thing. Check it out. We're ready to ship it if you want. Awesome. Okay. Like obviously a big challenge for people is also just code review. I imagine Claude is also doing a lot of its own code review. Is there anything there you've

14:49 recently figured out that allows your teams to ship. faster stuff that they are confident is great. Yeah, and honestly it's crazy when you think we didn't even have clawed code reviews last year. And so speak of bottlenecks, that that was a really, really big bottleneck of, you know, the human reviewers. So we definitely for the important like like areas that need deep subject matter expertise. We definitely want to make sure we have the proper, uh, you know, like humans still reviewing. I would say what helps us, though, is the more that we can automate to almost uh check in the framework for what good looks like.

15:20 Claude is very good when you give it a framework to validate against those frameworks. So I had mentioned like you know, or late, you know, like right recently we just updated the content design to to have a skill in it. Like my like I and this is why like um I think if you have specs. Or like or like like check those into the repo and then make sure the spec also keeps up to date with the code like frequently. But that's what I found like works really well of any time you have like a statement of what good looks like.

15:47 get that into to the repo and then code review can make sure it's Still matching what you set up to do. Basically it's like a the evolution of test driven development. Yes. For T D D it's'cause I remember that was like a a big thing, my gosh, maybe like in the two thousands of right the test first and then and then you can like make sure the test fails. Then you do actually the code in principle is really good, but I think I know I remembered I myself struggling a bit because

16:12 It was almost like you have to eat the broccoli first. I was like, Oh, you have to write this test first. And I just get so much thrill out of shipping and building product. So it's funny. Actually the first bug I fixed on Claude Code, I remember asking Claude Hey, I want to do test driven development. Help me write the test first. Make sure it's fails. And then we'll actually, you know, do the fix and then and then now that it has passed and

16:33 The fact that that used to be, you know, like that test generation used to just be this tax that I remember having to pay. Like the fact that that's now automated. And you can even revisit All these principles have been around for a while, but now they actually might be even more efficient just because you have the models that can do More of the work for you. Yeah, like that's That's so unfair. It's just right test for you first.

16:56 So on this point of builders, one of my favorite slides from your talk that um I want to ask about is who you are hiring and who what you look for in people. And so I'll read what you said there and I wanna hear more here. So the two profiles that you now look for when you're hiring are

17:12 Creative builders with product sense. And deep systems experts for the hard parts. Yeah, the deep subject matter expertise. Like, for example, when I first run Cloud Code, we had really great um kind of like product generalists. And then I realized, oh, we were missing folks with uh systems. background. And so that was definitely an area that we we needed more folks with uh kind of like systems and distributed systems expertise. Um, and so I would say whatever are the parts that it's all about trust but verify. The models are really good, but there are definitely a lot of areas that still need

17:45 You know, the verification and so wherever you need the deep uh subject matter expertise, I would say that's you know, an area to definitely still invest in. Um and the other one is kind of like the the the product, uh the product sense books almost like the dreamers. Like these are folks that usually will be like my gosh, you're really passionate about a product and they have an idea, they build it, and then it's always like looking at the feedback and then iterating and polishing and making sure that the product is a delightful experience. Like

18:12 Owning that product end to end, uh that that's That's like a another skill set that served us really well on Clockhead. The super resonates. There's this word ambition. I don't know if you used it, but that's what I thought of as you were talking. That's been coming up a bunch recently, um in the podcast and and other work I've been doing.

18:30 There's a Ten X C engine I was talking to the other day and he was just like I used to Like I heard about a feature idea. Like I ha someone's like, Hey, we should build this and I was like No, that's really hard and complicated.

18:42 And he's like, But now I'm like No No That's still possible. I just asked. Claude code to do it. And it just does it. And it's this whole mindset shift. And he's just realizing now it's about how ambitious can you be. Like

18:54 Everything is now possible. In theory. Now it's about how ambitious and how big can you think. versus just like, okay, it's all these stupid little features and things I have to unblock. Does that does that resonate? Is that something that you think about? Yes, actually I was just catching up with an engineer uh yesterday and um Uh he actually is not a mobile engineer by trade, but we really needed to uh update this feature to also have a a mobile footprint.

19:18 And it was just amazing. Like he's like, You know what? 'Cause it it it and it's common'cause you might think, Wait, but I don't I'm not like an Android expert. But now, thanks to Claude, actually I can actually have a partner and actually also do this on the mobile surfaces. And so that definitely resonates. It's it's like the it's lift at the ceiling. Of what an anyone is able to do. Let me follow that thread.

19:40 As the role has transformed in such a crazy way. Some people are thriving. Some people super frustrated, unhappy. Fighting, resisting. What do you see?

19:54 Common across the people that are doing really well, the engineers that have adapted and are thriving. versus the engineers and you know, even outside engineering that are just like frustrated and having a bad time. I would say th a growth mindset really, really helps. Like actually even before um AI tooling, I found that has been just so valuable. And I I learned that a lot actually it was the shift from that um

20:15 Microsoft to meta. That was where I first real that first year I'm like, Oh, this is what having a growth mindset really means. It's really this concept of always be learning be and also what served you to get you to this point may not Uh we serve you no longer. But it's really hard because of course everybody like we all

20:34 You know We've all gotten to the state by acting or, you know, like operating in a certain way. And so sometimes it is a little bit scary to think, wait, you're asked like, but I've been successful so far. You're asking me to change. What has made me successful.

20:48 And so I I would say like the growth mindset is is really really has has really served me well. And I think it's also served Others will um that that I noticed like always leaning in with curiosity and Always being able to learn um And then in terms of like the frustration, I think sometimes I also see a little bit of fear.

21:08 And so my advice there is at least this is how Just in life. I've 'Cause we all have and fear is of course an evolutionary like I'm I I didn't study anthropology, but I think it, you know, it it makes sense, right? It helps us make sure we were able to survive and not get eaten and you know uh by by larger predators. But for anything that

21:29 You know that that there is a fear. My advice is kind of lean in and ask, Okay, is there some what can I do about it? What is within my control? 'Cause sometimes the frustration comes from fear and feeling like But everything is outside of my control and so it's happening to me.

21:45 And so if you think about okay, what is in your control, um Is it happening for you. And then what's What's something that you might be able to kind of like do and change? Like I felt that's been helpful because it if not, it it it it is super frustrating to have the fear and then feeling like

22:02 Everything's outside your control. Like I actually remembered um When I was in actually when I was in high it's funny when we were going back to IBM. Uh when I was in high school I actually didn't uh go into computer science or engineering. Like I really want to be a visual artist. And this is how far back we go. Back then computers were really expensive. So actually

22:23 didn't even have access to a computer. My first computer with uh access to computer was Grade nine, I think, in high school. I don't even know if this happens in high school anymore. My high school had a typing class. Where you went to class just to learn how to type on a keyboard and learn to be really proficient and

22:40 That was my first time. And then, you know, the next class was maybe like um some HTML programming. So anyways, it it it but the reason why I fell in love with it was while what I love about art is creating and being able if you have an idea, you can go ahead and create and tell a story. And then I realized, oh computers and programming, you know, that that's that's um enables me to do that. So anyways, I I try to really fast try to make up for all the you know, science classes for me to get into university. But I had this fear of, oh, but how will I afford to get into an engineering school?

23:11 And it was this big unknown. I I grew up in Ontario, so I was very grateful. I knew there was an Ontario, you know, school assistance program. I OSAP I think it's called which I'm very grateful for. But I didn't know how much of that would cover my tuition or like expenses and it was just this unknown and it would be like A year a year out. And I remember thinking, okay, what can I what can I do about it? And then as as luck would have it, the National Bank of Canada just

23:36 posted this flyer in our high school saying, Hey, we're high High school interns to be a bank teller. And I remembered oh that like I and of course it was gonna be minimum wage, but I I I I thought that that could be a lifeline. But it was funny because the class I hated the most in high school was accounting. So I don't know if I'll be any good at it at all. But I signed up to be a bank teller. And that ended up being such a great decision because I worked all summer Saved up. And then then actually I was able to work as a bank teller on the weekends.

24:04 So like yeah, well I would went to s I would go to school Monday to Friday and then I'm sorry to be a bank teller. And that ended up being this lifeline that enabled me to You know, like pay for all my school expenses. Um And you know, we talked about the the year two thousand dot com crash, then when folks weren't hiring as much interns, actually I continued being a bank teller for For two two years, uh and and so but

24:27 But like that was the one action I felt I could take that was within my control to try to counter this fear I have of if I'm really gonna go down this path. I don't even know if I could have afford to go to school. So that's probably my other advice of like growth mindset and The source of, you know.

24:42 frustration or anxiety. If it's coming from, you know, the like see, is there some is there one action that's within your control that you can take um to You know, it so it it it Like'cause I think there's and you know

24:55 Th there was a saying like do something What would you do if you're not afraid, actually? Those were my two favorite sayings before like what would you do if you're not afraid and do something scary once in a while?'Cause That's also usually how we grow. Um, I found that when you're when you're really good and professional, what you do, you're kind of at peak. You know, like maximum efficiency. But then how do you keep growing is you then do something scary that you might not have done before. And yeah, you will cut have a dip because you need to learn.

25:19 But that's kind of how you um keep pushing yourself toward. The quote that I have probably used the most on this podcast of all quotes is The cave you fear contains the treasure you seek. Oh, I love that. Yeah, and it's so true. Just like

25:34 Like I forget who put this, but just the thing that is scariest is like That's a compass towards that's what you should be doing. Mm. Yeah, please do. Like you know, there's like don't do all the scary things. Like maybe don't drip off a clip.

25:48 But making career career moves, it's probably a good Make your 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

26:02 Forming. between people that are just like leaning into AI, killing it, doing super well, and then people that are Just like not. And this is like Um scary time for people that may be left behind in this

26:14 uh new world that is emerging. Uh, I know you spend 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 like how you think about that and what maybe we should be thinking about.

26:26 To help folks, you know, stay. Not not fall behind, basically. Oh, I I I love this. Yeah, it's one of my passion topics'cause uh kind of mentioned, you know, like growing up in Canada. Um, and I I moved there when I was a kid. Uh 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 her grandma's the best, but I really was so lucky I had the best grandma. She moved with us, uh, just to take care of me while my parents were working.

26:58 But neither of us spoke English, but I was able to learn how to speak English by you know going to school and speaking with classmates. And when I think about my grandma, it was a very alienating for her to be, you know, in that country new country where And You know, back then it wasn't as walkable. Um But one summer I remembered we just happened to find this little yar shop.

27:17 uh that was owned by a lady that also spoke. And so that became every week we would go to this yarn shop this summer and my grandma found her knitting circle. And then I think I learned how to do like macrame, which I think is having a comeback, by the way. It's all it's always funny to see where it's Macrame coming back. Macrame, I think. Yeah. Harry did hear first on Linny's podcast. I think Macrame's coming up. Um, but but that was probably 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, you know, become friends with all of the small businesses that That I love. So that that's kind of like where the passion comes from. And then

27:53 Um What how it happened was I was using co work for my own uh business uh Expensing travel. I don't know what it is. I really don't like doing business expensing. And when I was using Coberk, it was magic. I'm like

28:06 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 are really bust Their butt like they work incredibly hard. Um and they're usually you know, like somehow might be operating on really small margins. And so I thought

28:21 If it's if Claude Co work is so good. you know, business travel expense. This would be huge for it. Cause I I see my friends sometimes sitting at the bar with stacks of bills and all they're doing is invoicing and expensing. And and I think nobody actually really likes to do it. So that's kind of uh where it came from. And then so yeah, I remembered. Uh ch

28:42 helping uh a couple of them on board and and uh it was also very humbling to to see them go through our onboarding flow. Actually it 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 in ways that I I wouldn't have thought about because I was all fixated on look at how it is amazing with PDFs and invoice and then um You know, one of my friends who who runs two restaurants, she's like, Oh my gosh, this folder I have is like a drunk drawer of Like It it's basically our, you know, documents folder. It just becomes this junk drawer of every or downloads like just it, you know, like the kitchen junk drawer.

29:17 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 the directory found the menus. And then she's in a really unique way. She goes, Like, 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. Um, so I learn something every time and uh and yeah, they've been like giving me great feedback as well.

29:48 So the question then is just like how do we how do we spread this to everybody? Because as you see, you know. There's like Like a lot of people are just like, I don't have time for this or I hate AI. It's just like I wanna ignore it.

29:59 Is it like talking is it just talking about these sharing examples? What do you think? What's like a way to make a dent in this? uh in this problem. For all of us, us especially to your listeners are probably very AI pilled.

30:11 If there's anyone either in their community or their family that that has like I would start with What has something that really you felt Um Has that you really have felt has made a meaningful life change.

30:25 uh for you with with the AI tools and then seeing it that as a conversation starter for'cause 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. Like have to learn how to use the tools because it could actually you know, be the light part of that light and dark equation. So I think that that would that's something that I would love everybody's help with of if there's whether it's a community member or even if there's a business you really like and think, Hey, have you ever It's it's it's a little awkward to start. Like I remember when I first reached out my friends, I'm like 'Cause I don't talk about what I do uh with them a lot, but then hey, uh kind of, you know.

31:03 Can I uh can I can I sh it it sounds it's it's even unnatural for me to do'cause I'm you know, like I'm like, hey, can I show you what You know, cowork is possible and and uh y and then uh but it ended up we end up having a lot of fun. So Yeah, I would love for like That the conversation starter um would be great if yeah,'cause I just wanna make sure we keep sharing the the knowledge and, you know, making the tool equitable'cause if not I'm

31:26 concerned that the divide grows larger and larger. Me too. I find that sharing use cases, as you said, is uh so powerful I was Just using cowork the other day to fill out my s my son's camp forms. And just

31:38 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 Clauco can do. Kind of along those lines, speaking of co work. If you think about it Anthropic has been

31:52 Super early. on uncovering these really Big opportunities. Ahead of everyone else. For example.

32:00 Coding. So far ahead, like realizing this is a huge market. Whether it was intentional or not, uh is just like whoa, that's maybe the biggest new business opportunity in history. Uh and then cowork is a great example, just leaning into knowledge work. Let's just make let's just solve all the knowledge work. Why not?

32:17 So far ahead of everyone else. Another A focus on the personality of the model. Something y'all were very early on just

32:26 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

32:38 to uncover these opportunities and then just go big on them before other labs, let's say. Well I haven't worked in any other labs. So I'm not sure how our labs operate. But I I will share like yeah with um And like actually on the Cloud Code team as well and co-work, like we also keep an eye on like latent demand. Now we're very fortunate with coding as a use case because so many adds that we were, you know, like our our own first customers and we're able to do like really rapid feedback and

33:04 And so I think um but latent demand has has been like a like for example a cowork we know to say a lot of folks that were not necessarily coders were were using cloud code, can we make that experience better? Um I think that's Actually even outside of anthropic that served me well in in all the different Products I've worked on. Um but Uh and and actually it's funny you mentioned like

33:25 you know, the the cloud for uh, you know, my passion with small business after I You know, had a few of this business. We ended up now launching Cloud for Small Business. Which is really cool because I and and it totally didn't come from me. So I'm not taking credit, but I noticed it too of like when I was working with and they because they were asking me, Oh, does it have this plugin or this plug in? I'm like, I think it does, and then we have to, you know, go and search for it. So actually now Cla was fall this is Bundles it all up. So it's like co work you just

33:49 Have this little toggle. And uh there were there were uh there's a wonderful team that's been kind of like uh you know, doing uh co work sessions with small businesses that probably found, Hey, we could have like an efficiency gain here. Um Or like make the experience better. And so I would I would say like always uh not only for products that you're on, like making sure you're always s you know listening to feedback and always iterating, trying to make a delightful, reliable, high quality experience, but then also keeping an eye out for, oh, what are these other use cases that

34:19 that are popping up and can we also make that experience better. Um It's it's interesting, like after like You know In software I've learned that.

34:28 Customers will use your product in ways that you did not intend for good or for bad. And so the the best way um is really like it's all about the iteration, learn and um keep close to the feedback. Weight and demand. That's a that term's come up a bunch on this podcast. Some there. Might be some there. So essentially just watching closely for

34:48 behavior that you may not have expected. Or that if just kind of emerging. And then just Going big on that, essentially, exploring it, building something. Awesome. Yeah.

34:57 And having a hypothesis for hey, like, because actually when you see people jumping through hoops to make something work. Can you actually make that an even like a smoother and and better experience? Yeah. Coming back to the way that your teams operate. You guys are so At the edge of what's possible.

35:16 And the role of just engineering has changed so much. I'm curious what you think is the next kind of frontier. of how engineering in particular is gonna change. Is it like

35:26 And fleets of agents is it Something else, just like what's like the next big shift to how engineers operate. Either you're ready. working on or implementing or just like it's starting to happen. I would say we're shifting more towards async.

35:39 like asynchronous and so to your point the the fleets of agent like that that's why routines is so interesting because almost like I used to be like, you know, doing a prompt and synchronously. And then uh I would like maybe like kick off different props asynchronous. Asynchronously.

35:53 But now I can actually have a routine that actually generates you know, these these prosper means so it's almost like the level of st abstraction keeps Pulling up a little bit. And so I I would s yeah, I I I wish I have a crystal ball to see what this is gonna look like. It'll be fun actually for you and me to revisit a year from now. No, I w I wanna hear more about this. This is so help us understand what is it what is routines and then what is when you say synchronous. You're

36:16 writing a prompt and it just kind of goes off and is it writing it immediately talk about what this actually looks like. Ah, good yeah, so uh routines is like how you can odd like so if you remember I was trying about my what I used to do is always like uh you know, wake up with my morning cup of coffee and hey, look at through this Slack channel for me. But then now like I have a routine uh that I set to run every morning at a certain time to say hey Mm-hmm. That's right. Uh, but then it's able to actually go and kick off agents on your behalf. And so that's'cause like that's what like in you know, even you know, before it would be, oh, you could like yeah, do a crime job to automate, like, but now it's hey, look at these feedback. And then if you're seeing some of these bugs that what are some polish fixes that you might be able to to knock out and then it would let go kick off and then I wake up and I end up having PRs that I could review versus before which is still

37:03 more of a I have different agents that and then it's still I'm still thinking about okay now what do I do with this information? So it's like that higher level abstraction of okay, now how can I actually write a routine that also basically does prompts for me for spawning different agents. Uh so I think we'll will move more towards that. kind of like asynchronous style of working. So interesting. So like in a sense as a manager, you have these kind of things you do daily. And what you're saying here is you can set up these prompts that kind of check in every day.

37:32 on the things you would be be doing, like How are the projects going? What's falling behind? What should I unblock? Who is uh who's struggling? Uh what's how do I fix some improve some some polish. And so the idea here, which you're describing here is kinda write these things that you almost do as a manager daily.

37:48 And have Claude essentially do them for you and then show you here's what I'm doing. Here's what I here's what there's to review. And then it's it's even like then giving even more autonomy at some point of it, you know what, like go for it. Like if for example, if verification is really good, go go for it. I see. So you give it like a little bit of freedom to do more of this. Okay. That is so interesting. That reminds me, speaking on this idea of go for it, I don't like I wasn't planning to talk about this, but I just watched Tyler Cohen have this awesome talk. about just like what's happening. I don't know if you know Tyler Cohen, it's really smart.

38:18 Dave Economist as a podcast. Uh And he just had like there's so much talk of the people that are doing best in this world. Uh His term is um initiative. They have initiative.

38:30 Uh another term people use agency. Is that something just like you know, people hear this a lot, just like the people that seem to be doing best. Or taking the most initiative, getting the most proactive. Have the most agency. Does that does that kind of spark any thoughts to you just what people may

38:45 Need to I don't know, think about or improve on. Actually that's uh agent it it's I love that word agency. That's what we really hold important on the Cloud Code and Cowork team. Um, but it's interesting, I say along with high, because like we really it's about like hey, here's our problem. And then it's really everybody uh on the team has ideas for how to address the problem. So it's really high agency. And then we say with high agency is also high accountability. So it's all about like making sure folks have that freedom to cook. Yeah, they and but then it's also like okay, what's the accountability for it as well? And that's where and and again it goes back to like what's a hypothesis of what you're, you know, like trying to solve. So I think yeah, the the balance, like or you know, almost like two sides are the same kind of agency, and then accountability, I think has served our team really well. Such an important element.

39:31 Have a c agency. Okay, cool. Everyone's off doing stuff, but okay, what have you actually what have you brushed it up? What have you done? So kind of along those lines. It feels like there's this vibe shift recently from Token maxing, just go crazy, spend as much as possible, just see what's possible. Wait.

39:48 What are we actually getting out of this? How much does it cost day? What's the R O I? Uh, interestingly, Boris was actually like head of Productive inch productivity at Meta, that was like his job. is measurtivity. And uh

40:00 And then also just this like tweet of lines per code, like code ship, like there's this like interesting discussion of just How do you actually measure productivity increase and ROI? Of AI tools in spend. How do you like, you know, you guys have the unfair advantage of getting free free tokens working at Anthropic.

40:19 With that in mind. What What have you learned about just how to measure Say R Y Uh

40:25 engineers in today's world. But this end productivity is such a fascinating topic. Um Yeah,'cause I remember, you know, like like even Boris mentioned, like, you know, we'll first start with like lines of code. And then that's throughpa. And then I remembered once then there was a debate of well, lines of code. This engineer had this crazy lines of code, but they just took some library and then just was porting it. So they checked it in and then I was like, well maybe it's significant lines of code.

40:49 And then it's well, but what if we're, you know, updating our frameworks and now we're generating less code, but like the output's still the same. So now I'm like, okay, maybe it's it's like time to land PR. Like but but it's very interesting if it's always been whichever metric It's it's um like if if you're really focused on the out like My advice here is

41:10 One is output. Like Is the output really going towards the outcome? 'Cause yeah, like the the the the token maxing, it's kind of like a a it's almost like the lines of code that we used to have, but I'm really much more about a um what is it that we're trying to to do? Like all all of this. You know, there there was another saying I really but don't first take motion for progress. Um because if you're measuring like

41:33 You know, like tool user usage, then you're you're measuring the action. But is it really making whatever that end outcome of yours like important? Um and so I I really uh try to zoom out and focus on what is the problem we're trying to solve. What's a

41:48 good way to measure that. And then uh that's what we bit we focus mostly on versus kind of like the the the productivity measurement. Um I would say though, like outside of metrics, especially if on Teams as you're having more people adopt AI tooling, I would say definitely go um on a listening tour for for the for the leaders listening to a podcast, especially, you know, um I I love to focus on the senior engineers as well, like hear from them on what's working, what's not. How can we actually make it better? Cause they will also help you multiply. and scale that out across a full engineering team. And sometimes it's those conversations where you might get spark an idea that comes up and also really good shared learning versus um, you know, like metric dashboards.

42:30 It's very interesting. I've learned some good lessons for metrics. I'm all about like It's really great when you have a a metric that you can actually hell climb on. But always keep in mind of is you know kind of my whole growth mindset of is it still serving you? Always keep in mind like Is that metric really uh still serving the outcome that you were aiming for?

42:49 Um, like a fun example I have of this is in the early Facebook marketplace days, we were kind of like launching bi region, and we really want to make sure we're building a delightful product before we expand. And I remember in the early days, one thing we would keep an eye on is kind of like number of sellers. And I remembered after launching to her first region, I'm like, Oh, in this area the number of sellers is low, but actually people are like people are finding items that they're looking for, which is what we're aiming for. We're like helping people find

43:17 items that that they need. And then I realized in that region it wasn't uh large number of sellers, but there were power sellers. But our first gate before we expand would have just been like, you know, factoring heavily number of sellers. And I remember that quick conversation of hey, and this goes back to that whole people will use things in ways you may not expect and shift, iterate, learn. And so uh so then we updated the the metric to go, oh, you know, like it's not uh number of cellular because it didn't factor in power sellers.

43:44 And so that's the advice I have too, like whatever metric, whether for productivity or even For product, always keep an eye and make sure that You're not just having blinders on that's blindly following a metric that used to make sense, because sometimes the landscape can change so fast. uh even the metrics themselves might need to be adjusted. And this comes back to your

44:03 uh process that you shared of having Claude watch all the PRs shipping per engineer, let's say. And then not focusing on the metrics, but focusing on that leading to a conversation about

44:15 What impact did this have? Or was maybe some bugs that happened. And that being a really powerful way of understanding how what's going on with this engineer. Awesome. Let me come back to this just this question of speed and quality and just like Impact.

44:30 Uh Is there anything else you've learned about just how to balance those things just like the crazy velocity of code that's being generated. And just stay on top of quality and impact. Is there anything else there that might be helpful to other teams that are trying to

44:44 Wrangle all this. All these PRs being shipped every day. I would say and this is what uh honestly we we we're we wanna keep doing more of and and being better at it too, like the proactive quality. So especially for quality, making sure that what are the experiences that are key and uh making sure you actually It's you know, actually speaking of metrics, those are really good things that you make sure you can like kind of like see trends over time.

45:07 Um and so like on the quality front, we found like Um And this is like the more proactive we can be of like making sure we can get an earlier detection into uh quality and and so like um That's been one thing that we've been paying a a lot of attention to, like so we've

45:25 Like you know, I I I started this, hey, let's have a concept of uh what's bad versus what's sad and bad is like a very bad irrecoverable error And SAD is something that's kind of like a pain point recoverable, but it's interesting. When you stack up SADs, it could, you know, generally go to that. But even having a like starting with a high level framework like that. And because if not, like I think sometimes with dashboards, you can have, you know, like uh time to load or all these other, but when you're dealing with a lot of different product surfaces, it's harder to go, wait, is that a good number or not a good number? And so one thing that's helped us is versus just raw you know, like performance or uh, you know, like reliability numbers, also having some framework of what we think is, you know, like a

46:05 a bad experience and making sure we're Focus on addressing those and then also keeping an eye on where we're seeing in terms of the sad. I like that a little bit. Yeah, I like the bad and sad. So these are kind of like thresholds of this is bad. Okay, this is serious. And this is in terms of like performance or or or failures, or what what are what sort of things are you measuring here? Uh so for example, like we we allow each team like speak of agency. So knowing that bad is like a really bad irrecoverable error. We enable each team of further surface areas or it could be services that, you know, they lead. What what is like so for example on CLI could be crash rates. Like a crash is pretty bad. You lost work. Um, and for example, a SAB might be hey, is it flickering like it might be recoverable. But we have each team like and and that's why it's been interesting because before each because surface areas are different. Like we would have all these dashboards of, but it's it's harder to zoom out and go, okay, what's the overall theme of the experience?

46:57 So to your point, we give high agency to each team of what we think constitutes a bad And what's a sad, and then what's the goal that um each team wants to take. One of the like the main takeaway I'm hearing here is uh one of the best tools for staying on top of quality. is just uh monitoring and tests.

47:15 Versus Spending more time reviewing. Which makes sense because the speed is just impossible to stay on top of. And it almost speaks to this idea of closing the loop. for agents to be able to kind of figure things out themselves. They know what success looks like, cool, we'll fix it ourselves.

47:30 So that's a really interesting takeaway is just invest more in the tests. Evals I imagine as part of this, and then just like monitoring. Failures and speed and things like that. That's right. Something I think this is public. I I know that you guys have this dashboard that tracks just like F words. Like how often people are like'cause they're so pissed and frustrated. There's like a funny term for it, I think. I forget what it's called.

47:50 Yes. Actually, I remember, yeah, that was last September because we were all uh we were all seeing some frustrations and uh yeah, that was an engineer on the team of hey, we should maybe track square words. I'm like, Oh that's a great idea. I remembered. I had just, you know, Joe and we were having that really fun conversation. Um yeah, so it it's a it's again like it it's very interesting to kind of like look at um And and that's why like evals is hard too, because It's

48:13 Going back to like that user experience and how we can make sure it's a delightful experience and less frustrating. But yeah, the the swear word dashboard is is a fun one. This episode is brought to you by Mercury, radically different banking loved by over three hundred thousand entrepreneurs, and now with command. I've been a customer of Mercury's for over six years. I have never once thought about leaving. Mercury is basically what happens when banking is built by product people, not by bankers. They make it so easy. Dare I say fun? To send invoices, move money around, set up virtual cards for folks on my team.

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49:39 Um, I've heard about a couple of things that you've implemented that are pretty unique, I think. To uh how teams operate and I think is something that has worked really well for you. One is Making every manager start as an IC.

49:51 And then just every manager has to continue. being an I see part time kind of this player coach. Approach. Talk about that, why that's so important in today's world. Mm, I love it. Um it's funny when I first joined

50:04 'Cause I I uh and I have amazing recruiting partners. And I I noticed we were, you know, this whole theme of um kind of growth mindset, it's just because the landscape is changing so fast. Like what worked well before, like may not make sense. And even what makes sense today may need to change tomorrow, right? Like that's what I have to keep reminding myself. So yeah, when I first joined recruiters, like, okay, yeah, we have these, um public magic postings and I'm like, you know 'Cause actually how It came from like a listening tour I did with like all the all the um

50:31 members on the team. of and I heard a lot of these, hey, I really appreciate the agency, but how can I make sure prioritization and and so I kind of uh through that I I um I realized and then there was some really good feedback too of making sure that Um, it's not too many layers of reviews. Like there was good feedback. Some folks have might have tried from other companies are like, you know, and and then I'm like, hmm, when I actually think as a as a leader, if you actually start as I see first Without the kind like worry of supporting people,'cause that's a very heavy responsibility that, you know, I think like measures but like that.

51:04 But before you have to take on that full responsibility. Give yourself that maker time. to actually tap deep into the code and learn uh the code base and I I've or or or the product, like whatever it is. It doesn't have to like honestly though the PRs I do are like But it it's more about for me, it's important because it keeps me in the flow because we're making so many changes to co work and code. So even me doing PRs, it's less about

51:29 What it is I'm fixing is more about me using the the prior reday just to keep that touch. Cause as amazing as metrics and everything are, and I do look at those dashboards. If you as a leader, if if you're not, you know, like living and breathing your your product every day, you s you sometimes kind of like lose touch of uh the touch and feel of the product. But anyways, on the manager front, I think cre giving time for managers that join to Be able to

51:53 go deep into do that before supporting people and then they actually like end up Building really great rapport with the team. Like because if not, I I think sometimes as managers, you know, you might come and join a new team and you instantly think, I have to manage. Let me dig into my manager toolbox and and do managery things. But if you actually give yourself time to not have to worry about that first and actually learn what it's like to be an engineer and teammate on the team. That also goes really far, um

52:19 to to building rapport. And and in turn and in terms of like using the product, I think that's that's important. It's it's interesting. Every team I've Actually across all the different products. It could be VR, it could be smart glasses, it was like Instagram.

52:34 Usually when I first joined, one comment that comes back to me is, Hey, you know what? I really love how you're actually using what we build. It's it's refreshing to see, you know, you giving user feedback. Like like and and so I think as leaders too, it's also a way for us to experience that the work uh personally that the team does. Something that people may not realize. Uh you were m overseeing a an org of like five hundred people at Meta before you move to Anthropic, right?

52:58 And you move to I C I C engineer, basically, and Anthropic from that. I started out like it was for a very short short amount of time, but but um actually this was my journey between Microsoft and Meta. So at Meta I interviewed as a manager. But I think at least for the first quarter, I was also in I C, um, because I really wanted to learn what it's like to be a meta engineer. Cause before then I was At Microsoft, kind of like cut my teeth on engineering at Microsoft, so I knew all the code bases, the tools, the languages. And uh yeah it but it was so valuable to have the the those first months like actually learn what it's like to

53:33 ship uh as a meta engineer. Plus it was also fun. Like I think sometimes we forget if we like and but that's by the way what I love about Claw Coat. Because um The last time I ship production software at Meadows probably twenty seventeen. And every year I might st I like I do a lot of dog fooding and a lot of

53:51 You know, like I I also use dog feeding to help me like vet the quality of of of product as well. Um, but it's been a very long time since I shipped production software. It's because part of it is I don't I don't want to screw something up. Like I'm always I'm always so scared of what if I do something and then I cause a bug and then I'm not verifying everything properly, or am I wasting someone's time? Because you know, like also the the the tool flows would change. But I remember that first week on on Claude, I'm like I at first I almost again went to my usual, let me go meet all the engineers and treat them to coffee and then And I'm like oh wait wait wait let me ask Claude and so Claude was just really good onboarding buddy of mine,'cause I was curious about the Kobe's asking it questions and

54:33 And then it also really um, you know, uh helped me like, you know, do the automated test, but I also want to still do some manual testing. And I I asked Cloud, hey, help me come up with like what's the way for me to manually test this to make sure I cover All the case, but all that then gives me confidence that okay, I can ship PRs again. And then I got like kind of more comfortable with again and and so um I've I've actually had a lot of friends reach out to me that

54:56 I've been managed for a while that's like hey, I'm shipping code again, thanks to Claude. And so um but in in general, it's it's yeah, like it it's It's just important to me as leaders to make sure you're kind of like using the product that your team builds. It's so interesting that you Or overseeing the team. as an engine leader.

55:14 that is most changing the role of an engineer. It's such a Meta role. Like The work of an engine is transforming because of the software that you're building. One question along these lines is just Do you worry about it?

55:28 Uh Engineers skills to code atrophying. From not actually writing code anymore. And does it even matter? Is this like something you think about? Is it a big deal? It's it's interesting'cause we actually have this uh discussion uh on the team a bit. Like there like

55:43 Are there things that we miss? Or like actually to your point, I'm always like thinking about like when someone's onboarding and ramping, like you have Boris who hand rolled the code in the early days and of course now doesn't anymore, but he gained that knowledge from before because he was in the code days. So for especially all the engineers that joined, I'm also like, make sure you're like taking the time to to all the work that you do still get the understanding of the architecture or the change because it goes back to that trust but verify. Maybe one day it won't matter anymore, but at the at the pace that we're going, I actually still think understand like it's always double clicking on that layer that you depend on. Like may maybe that to me is a matter, like is Um, it's always take that time to learn about your dependencies,'cause this way when your dependencies change, like you're kind of like more aware, or you might not be taking advantage of changes to, you know, dependencies. So I think it's always about kind of like uh doing that double click.

56:35 But the other thing that we found interesting on the Cloud Code team is After a while we felt uh it could start being a lonely experience because we all started just working with our agents so much. So recently we started uh maybe a like a pairwise programming lunch. Because what we also learned was on Cloud Code, everybody uses uh Cloud Code Co work, everybody uses the flow so differently. And so we found that wow, when we do pairwise programming, we actually learn

57:00 So much from each other. Um And uh but and then the other thing too is we we make sure that like we also uh have the maker time together too. So like for example, hackathons is is another thing we really like to do just to make sure we're kind of like interacting together as a team.

57:15 That is such a good point. Just like the loneliness that emerges because Used to be Ench teams building code together, someone's doing the Back end, someone's doing front end, someone's doing iOS app. Probably a bunch of people, you know, on the back end. And I was like yeah, well we have ten clods running in parallel doing all these things.

57:33 That is such a good idea of just like finding ways to connect engineers. So the idea here is like almost paraprogramming, but not. It's like parallel. It's like parallel play when kids are growing up. Like you're kinda working next to each other, but building your own things. But even just watching how other people build is your finding is really valuable. Yeah. And it's because our our own tool chain is changing so fast as well. But yeah, it's very interesting to me of like everybody on on our team just uses cloud code and and co work in different ways. And so every time I watch someone work, then I I learn something myself as well.

58:05 How do you manage people getting over like obsessed with the optimizing their workflows? Is there anything you're just like, Okay, it's fine, just k just keep going. You know, I'm I haven't seen too many folks on our team. Like it's I think it's everybody is just real excited about, you know either a like an architecture update that we think will be higher reliability or some product experience. So most folks like that's what we we talk about a lot. Like yeah, we we um We don't over it's fun lunchtime conversations, but I don't think we over optimize because there's no because there's no perfect answer actually. There's too much to do.

58:40 Is there anything these are really interesting insights, just like as the role transformed. Things come, things go. So I'm curious what else is kind of lost in this new world of software engineering. I used to be an engineer. I don't know if you know this. I was an engine for 10 years. Uh and it was like

58:56 So fun just to sit there in flow coding. You know this feeling, just like Oh wow, it's working, we get it compiled, it's amazing, I'm making progress. And now it's like you don't do that anymore. You just sit there and kinda wait for agents to build a thing. What else what else is kind of lost in this New world for engineers.

59:12 Yeah, it's so funny. I just had that conversation with uh engineer and the team of talk about flow. Like remember the old days, you have this really gnarly problem and you pop that music soundtrack in and then you're just in the in the zone. Um Uh so yeah, there is a little, and then there was always that big aha moment at the end, I would remember. Like is it, yeah, you remember like you finally cracked it. You know that, yay! So we we do um but it's like I think now we get a lot of joy from like the product. But I do think there is because I hear from other engineers as well of head will I Some of the hardest parts is what I used to enjoy.

59:47 Um like yeah, I heard that from another engineer as well. And so I think we're all just kind of like shifting um Uh, but I I I do see like the the thing most and that's why I was I I was talking about like the Paris programming and the hackathon. That did recently come up more folks were starting to feel like it's starting to be a lonely experience. So interesting. Within Anthropic, I'm curious, so engineering

1:00:11 Like the most transformed, I think, of any role right now. What other what's like the second most transformed role so far, would you say, within Anthropic that's most different from how it was like a couple of years ago, let's say. It's it's all the coding adjacent rows are shifting. Like PM is I know like you you were chatting with Kat, I think PM is also transformed quite a bit because PM are no longer bottlenecked of if they have an idea waiting on engineering bandwidth. Um, so that's kind of like the the natural that song shift. Like actually our PMs have also helped us roll up sleeves and helped shift, you know, like some features when we when we were um you know, like when when there wasn't uh when there was a you know, something we want to do and an engineer wasn't able to. So I think um it's all the coding adjacent.

1:00:55 Rose are starting to shift. Um But I think that's where again the verification is important because when you have more different disciplines checking in, how do we make sure everybody has higher confidence? I also think we need to do more to keep automating these other portions of the workflows. Like for sure we focus a lot on coding, but

1:01:12 next when you think about like design or data science. Like those are starting to be the next areas that I think are good opportunities for us to see how we can, yeah, like um Uh start in imp improving kind of the experiences there as well. Yeah, I have a speaking of data science, I have a data science friend and he was just saying how Data science is so different now.

1:01:33 Where now most of their job is people doing their own like Not amazing data science work using AI and it And then just like showing it to the data scientists, here, here's the analysis I did. Can you just make sure it's right.

1:01:45 And half the time it's not right. And so the job is just like a whole different job now. Instead of doing the work that they thought they wanted to do, and that's like all right, I'm just reviewing all this AI data sites all the time. What the hell? Kind of along the lines coming back to just how your team operates and how things are changing. Let me see if something comes with this question.

1:02:06 What should an engineering manager Expect. From their team. Now versus like a couple years ago. What's like a normal, I don't know, baseline expectation of how things should work? Is it other than just, you know, we're shipping faster? Is there anything else?

1:02:20 Oh, interesting. Well definitely I think most commits are claud assisted. Uh, and so that was a shift. Um I think You know, I kind of like mentioned, we have like Slack channels with all the feedback and also our dashboards that we have qu um give to Claude. I think Having engineers building like keep building that stronger product sense muscle is I I think also like another and I think that in in general helps kind of

1:02:48 uh with these really trauma minded product engineers. I would say more of these roles that were traditionally non engineering You do now see engineers being a like and sometimes uh you're just blocked by, you know, waiting for uh, you know a cross functional partner. I think there's there's less of those blocks now just because Uh the models are able to augment

1:03:07 additional capabilities that you may not have as an um from uh as an engineer. So it's kind of interesting, that's both directions. engineers becoming more product minded and responsible for the quality and success of a product. And then everybody Becoming an engineer more and more. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's all blurring. Yeah.

1:03:27 I forget who said this, but there's this like Like what is a role anymore in this This guy said that it's Like What's the average?

1:03:35 Of what you do. What's like the highest percentage of what you do, and that's kinda your role now. Whatever it is to be. Yeah. Oh man. I wanna come back to your point about Obsession with the The product, living, breathing the product, dark fooding.

1:03:47 I talked to a bunch of people that work with you. about you. And that's the thing that came up most, just like your obsession with Living and breathing the product, using the product constantly, whatever it is you're building. uh this idea of dog fooding. Talk about just like why

1:04:01 That is so important why that's something you instill within your teams. And and and reports. Oh love it. Um yeah, I think it's it's really and and this has worked for me. Um it's just been a really good way for me to keep a pulse on You know, a anytime you build product there's There's a dream, like you're really hoping to enable an experience or making an experience better. So I think um being able like like that helps me keep really close to the pulse.

1:04:28 I also think uh as may and maybe some like for sure on Visual Studio, that was like, you know, where I where I got this love of it. Um But it's interesting'cause even marketplace I remembered every t once in a while I'll do like even after I left the team, actually. Um, one time I had like a MacBook Air I wanted to sell, Oh, and you know, I haven't sold anything on marketplace lately. Let me and I could not believe it the minute I I put it up for sale, uh a seller or a buyer tried to scan me. And it was an interesting like new

1:04:57 scan vector I didn't detect. And so but that goes to again like people will use uh your products in ways that that you may not expect. And so Especially as leaders, or even like anyone on the team, we all have different like life. Like actually it's it's funny when it when I was uh you know supporting the VR and AR teams somehow How I used VR. the setup, I would always be able to find these really weird uh floor height issues.

1:05:22 So that ended up being a oh I I took a you know, like I'm gonna help us, you know, like 'Cause somehow I got a good re repro environment, um And so I think it's number one, like making that's how you keep uh your pulse on the product that you're building and don't get too lost in metrics and dashboards only or presentations. I think that's such an important point you're seeing there that I just wanna make sure people Here is just like Like there's always this idea of anecdotal evidence and just like examples versus the data.

1:05:49 What you're saying here is as a product leader, as an engine leader. There uh you found a lot of success in like the anecdotes, the specific Uh. little one offs that you experience as a as a as a user versus like obsessing with the data only.

1:06:02 Yeah. And and actually sometimes it it's also how I've been able to most effectively help the team. So for example, the last time I was on, I I I was uh you know leading a VR team and You know, because like back then the like I I It it would have been r I w I I was n I have not checked in any code into that code base just'cause I was really worried about like messing up the operating system. But what was a gap? We were doing a lot of polish. fixes and uh I was I wanted to I'm like, hey, you know what? I'll use my dog fitting time. to actually vet how the experience looks. And and so that was also probably a way that I felt I could still meaningfully contribute to

1:06:38 help hold the quality bar for the team. And uh and then like I say, like every team member usually always really appreciates uh'cause I I think um As a lead, like you know, leader, you're supporting folks on team that outside of metrics and everything, everybody really wants to make sure. their work matters and uh yeah just just making sure that you know, leaders use your product. I think folks feel um the the leaders then remain like really engaged.

1:07:04 And not too um distanced. And this connects a lot with your point that engineers need to become more product minded. That engineers need to become more PME, PMs need to become more. But this is like as an engineer, this is one way to do it. Use the product constantly. And that'll help you understand what

1:07:18 is missing in the product as a user, because you're just using it. That's right. And and I would say if you're leading a team where it's really hard for you to use a product, then meet with customers. Like whatever that other avenue is that kind of um like I I think that's also been really important to you. Every time I've done customer visits, I always learn something new. Like actually I remember that was uh Facebook marketplace we're trying to launch to uh Latin America and so we had

1:07:42 you know, we were testing in Chile and I remembered it it it just wasn't doing as well as the other regions. We've done it ever but everything else we've we've tried it and then I remember I'm like oh yeah and we had a really small research trip where I went to Chile. I remember getting us a whole bunch of Android phones for us. It was very small crew, like just three of us. And upon landing and upon me opening up these Android phones and I'm like, ah, you know, the LTE connection was real was much slower than what we were used to in the US. And so I'm like, oh, the marketplace feed didn't even load very well on these low LT situations. What a what a growth block are you. You know, you can't even load. But I again that's why it's so important to always uh, you know, like um listen to customer feedback and and get that fast feedback loop.

1:08:25 I think it was Jeff Bezos that said if you Have the data and you have an anecdote. Trust anecdote. Over the data. Surprisingly.

1:08:33 And that's a great example. Okay. Uh just a couple more questions. One is in your talk you had this really interesting slide at the end of what questions you're kind of re thinking about right now. That you haven't figured out how to solve.

1:08:47 With how much is changing. Uh, I'm gonna read the three. I'm curious just like if it's still these three, if there's anything else, like current problems we need to figure out that we haven't solved in how we operate. What you shared in your talk was Do we still need separate iOS and Android orgs?

1:09:01 How far do you push fulton on automated reviews? And which role. With role blurring, how do you ensure everyone's equally productive? Still problems. Is there anything else that you're thinking about? Like, okay, we need to crack this, we haven't figured this out. You know the iOS Android one, like I think we're still the actually it's funny because uh speaking of like the deep expertise.

1:09:22 We definitely feel that um it's really important like it's really important to still bring on folks with those expertise, but we probably don't need like as large because people are flexing. So it's again making sure we have If um you know, like the Android and I was experts, but then less of a The larger kind of like a mobile or one per. And so but again, that's still a balance that we're trying to figure out if do do we have uh the right and enough expertise. Um

1:09:48 The the second one was uh sorry, what was the second one? Oh yeah. Uh it is uh how far do you push Folia? Automated routine. Yes. Actually, well this is a a fun one, like you know, with a content design check. I think we're we're looking for across all of it, like how do you actually get what good looks like? Um, and so I have uh like the and actually the verification is still one that we I think

1:10:11 And that's kind of like the second and the third, but I think we there's more a lot more opportunities there for us. Um, but the how far to push, I think uh looking at where we think uh experts still matters and then also Again, have to keep asking ourselves, okay, is there a way to leverage the expertise to also automate. Like I think

1:10:28 Um uh like looking across the whole end to end experience, like making sure we're not missing and like I think we we come at it from like an engineering standpoint, but Making sure on experiences, how we think about those other areas. Um, I I think there's definitely still more that we can do there. How do you solve how do you set up a verification that the experience is what you wanted it to be.

1:10:49 Exactly. But and I think that one is still a hard one to crack'cause you kind of like mentioned Evals,'cause it's it's some of it for sure is accuracy, but it's also that experience. Um, so that's something that uh yeah, we're we're still kind of thinking through. Awesome. Is there anything else that's like Oh, this has changed recently. We gotta figure out how to

1:11:07 rethink the way we operate, or is this kind of the the big ones? You know, I think because with Ru routines and everything being more Async. I I think there is starting to be a high load on our contact switching. 'Cause I even remember I myself was like, Oh like I kicked like uh I kicked off like and and so I think that's probably another thing we have to think about of how do we

1:11:28 Uh you know, whether for team members or users like how can we actually make that experience better to reduce that load.'Cause I I do see the context switching will be increasing. I can like if you have twenty agents running, there's just endless checking in and reviewing, and you have to remember what you're doing there. It's like such an interesting world where

1:11:47 Like the f idea flow we talked about before. Like engineers and most people like there's less of the just hours of Low. But now the agents can kinda just remind you, here's where you're at, like the

1:11:59 Reset. To switch almost. is easier'cause you don't have to like re learn everything. You don't have to like re understand the code base and the With architecture, you can kinda just like okay, but here's what we're trying to do. It's kind of like both. Got better, got worse.

1:12:12 Well, it's interesting because I used to do book out like focus time for like you know with the focus time for coding because you want that dedicated and then the whole contact switching. And then it's interesting. Now that because I can contact switch more with more ASIC agents. I'm noticing I do actually have to go back and block like a focus time. for me to catch up on all the, you know, different ASIC work that I've kicked off. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on a solution there? Cause that's hard. Just like there's like people just wanna do more and more and just how do you do that with out to constantly contact switching. It's really hard.

1:12:42 Annoying. I agree. Like definitely I haven't cracked it yet. So interesting. Okay. There's a question I thought of as we're talking that I've I'm like so excited to hear your answer on that. I wasn't even planning to ask this, but it's So uh important these days, which is just like And jobs and hiring.

1:12:59 So interesting that you would think AI would uh make engineers less necessary. On the other hand, it feels like You guys are hiring engineers like crazy. Open eye is hiring engineers like crazy. Just like there's so much demand for engineers.

1:13:13 Where do you think this goes? What do you think about just the future of the end role? This big question. But just Thoughts. I'll I'll show oh actually I'll I'll I'll share some vulnerability here. One

1:13:25 Um, speaking of like big open questions, I really do think how we grow the the next generation just because uh how you and me got to Our engineering path is just so different. It's almost like okay, now when you graduate from school, it's like how do you kind of fast forward and but but the important thing to me, but still understand Kind of like you know, that double click I talk about to to the the lair beneath. Um

1:13:49 But that that is A big question I have and I wish I have the answers, but I I wonder if it's um for software engineering, it's almost like you go more towards A fellowship or apprenticeship program.

1:14:03 I know it's odd,'cause technically we have like in internships that would but those were like kind of like three months and little projects. But I I do wonder if um And I I wish I have a crystal ball here, but it's it's yeah, like how do you Almost like cram in some of the And and maybe it won't matter, but you know, some of the life experiences that we all got, how do you actually enable

1:14:23 Um us to kind of like teach that to, you know, the next generation of builders. Right. Like if you don't have to ever look at code. w what's the incentive for a new software engineer to truly understand how Infrastructure works and

1:14:38 And memory allocation, all these things that are like kind of foundational. And and it's interesting. Maybe it the the malls will get good enough that it it doesn't matter. You know, but I do think there's something about that that double click'cause I think that's where there might be an opportunity to improve the product or the system. But figuring out how to

1:14:57 Learn that Not necessarily by, you know, like year years of uh typing code. Yeah. Yeah. Like somebody's gotta have to understand code at some level. Like it's like some COBOL engineer they have to like pull out of the retirement one day. Like do you remember how to write Python. You know actually what's really fun? One of my uh, you know, previous managers, I mean, he

1:15:18 started software engineer when it was punch cards. And it's so fabulous. Like he's been messaging me everything he's been building with Claude Code. And I'm like, wow, what a career that you go from like he's really like he, you know, he's really kind of like seen this whole. change. So maybe I think for us to think about is like when I think about his career, how he got started with Punch Cards was also totally, totally different than than now. And so m it it might be that um I I think it'll be interesting for us to see what remains important.

1:15:49 And then what changes in terms of importance and then it's like how do you um have gain like I have with theory, maybe maybe that's the the what is important will shift over time. And then How do you kind of uh

1:16:01 kinda build the proficiency into yeah, just learn the things that really matter. Like the argument that you I constantly hear it's just like it's a new level of abstraction, just like assembly and binary, like it just keeps going up and up. And now okay, we don't need to actually look at the code. It's like a new layer of shocks and prompts and And uh Claude's thinking uh you know, messages.

1:16:20 Yeah, and it's maybe like okay, what is a interesting problem and what's the prioritization for experience to build? Like it's it's interesting, maybe we're kind of Yeah. And then when you build things, how do you know it's actually resonating and And and uh it's kinda like doing what you intended. And is good, yeah. Like is this gonna are we just building a bunch of slop here or is this actually architecture that will work? I think the advantage though for young people is they are so It's so much easier to just to lean in and work in this new way versus being stuck in the way that things used to be. It's like rare. It's like amazing how many

1:16:52 Longtime engineers like yourself have adapted and embraced this. It's like so hard to just change everything. Okay, let's do it. Well, because the rate of change is also so fast. Actually that that was the one thing of um I remember the first time I I it was probably Sonnet Three five or or three six, like And I I remembered it was still like making some mistakes when I was doing things on the side. I'm like, Hmm, what are you doing and and and then what I noticed was some of the engineers that were resisting. AI totally. They're like, ah, but see, it's you know, like look at all of these. But then I think it was hard to understand of how kind of like the exponential rate of improvements. And so um always and and maybe that's another interesting thing that I

1:17:32 My stuff I'm learning too, like there might have been something I tried to automate. The Claude wasn't quite good enough. And then actually in the next model Oh well now it is good enough. So it's always Also thinking about what may have not worked, like it might be worth the time to revisit'cause

1:17:47 Y you know, that now might be a new capability. Yeah. That comes up a lot on this podcast, just Build something that is almost working that is at the edge because once the model gets there, you'll be so far ahead of everybody else. Okay. Uh, final question. You may have already answered this with what you just said, but

1:18:04 What keeps you up at at night? You know the thing that keeps me up at night's probably um It's how we So, you know, we talked about kind of like cloud code and cowork team culture. Uh that's and the team culture is really important to me. Like it's the one T mentality and I I you know I I share with folks.

1:18:22 And by the way, culture is like a living, breathing thing. It's not just a poster you slap on a wall and it changes over time and it's It shows up in how we treat each other, how we s how we're there for each other. And so the culture of the team is important to me because we are we are growing and And uh And since the culture shifts, like making sure that maintaining the things are important that we are

1:18:42 We still really uh Like it it's really important for me to have like diverse perspectives. So then we can have, you know, like good, healthy, open, honest debates on in the open and We kind of like welcome those and kind of what I call that one T mentality that when you get close to the finish line, look behind you and see is there Some of my favorite things to have'cause we kind of finish as a team.

1:19:02 That's probably the thing that keeps me up at night and it's It's like you know, there's so many other hard problems, right? But I think maybe a lot of the other ones are product or engineering. Challenges that yes, we have, you know, like dashboards or theories or hypotheses, like But

1:19:18 Uh the culture is like a human aspect that is um Like like I I think that's the one that I I always want to make sure that we're As we grow, we're still kind of like maintain that culture'cause it is kind of like the fiber um of the team and

1:19:35 Like when it starts drifting it it's uh it I'm always worried of it, you know, like If it if it drifts, are we catching it and having conversations as a team together to to to make sure we're kind of all Wanting the culture to grow in the right direction. Yeah. I imagine everybody is struggling with this.

1:19:52 Considering the pace of change in the Pays of hiring. Just like especially at a company like Anthropic, that's in this crazy like the most unprecedented growth trajectory in history. I could see how that could be uh some uh a challenge. Uh with so much change. So

1:20:07 Uh, it makes sense. Like even, you know, at Airbnb when I was there, like that was quite a growth trajectory and that was nothing like what you guys are going through. And that was a constant c topic of conversation. How do we maintain the culture? Actually, I'm curious, what was your experience at V B to maintain the culture as growing? A couple things. One is just the

1:20:26 What worked well is the founders being obsessed with it. Like every com every all hands, every Every big meeting is just like reminding of like the culture and the value of the culture and what The values are Just the founders top down being obsessed with it.

1:20:41 was a r big part of it. You just like couldn't have a meeting without that coming up as a As a thing. The other is A memory I always come back to is we had Cheryl Sandberg speaking a meta come to come do a fireside chat.

1:20:53 And somebody asked her just How do you maintain culture as you scale? Because we're just growing so fast and it's so hard to mean deal with all this change and culture and all these new people. And her advice was

1:21:05 This is actually the What the problem you want to have. Because this means you're growing. And doing well. And this is normal.

1:21:13 Versus you can N nothing will change if you're doing badly. Like that's that's the That's a much worse situation when you're not growing. And you're not hiring like crazy. That's a much worse situation that will

1:21:24 Cause all even more. Demon suffering. So this is what this is a good problem you're you're you're dealing with. Is is her advice, which has always stuck with me. Oh, that's great. Like

1:21:33 It's interesting, like hearing you talk. I think one of the important things to kind of Cloud Code and Cowork team is Um whether uh I Cs or Managers But this is a thing I especially ask for managers on the team, is really important that we all talk about for sure what's going on, but also just be open about what's not going well. Because then if we can actually have a conversation of what's not going well, that's how we can actually go ahead and address it. Like my my my speaking of what keeps me up a night night my nightmare is

1:22:01 Especially if someone's in a manager position and and I'm like, hey, how are things going? Everything's fine. I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm not doing fine. I know this thing's on like like it's that that whole like you know how there was this meme of the Dr. K cup of coffee in a room that's on fire. This is like that, that is my my nightmare. So that's actually um a a discussion I have with a lot of uh sound thing but special matches of special when they first joined up hey, let's always have these open conversations so that we can solve problems together. I imagine this is something a lot of people struggle with, seeing so many people around them doing super well. At least seemingly doing well. Everything's going great, I'm growing. This some this awesome company or my

1:22:39 Just like everything, it's hard to It's like hard to actually be honest and Say okay, it's not going great. I'm struggling here. I'm falling behind. Because just like on the surface feeling like they're killing it.

1:22:50 Mm. Yeah. Before we get to our very exciting lightning round, is there anything else? that you either want to leave listeners with, anything else that we didn't cover, anything else that's important that you wanted to Sure.

1:23:03 Maybe one thing is like the just a suggestion. Of because you know, we talked about how yeah, how can Cloud do like automate like one other thing that's really uh big on Claw code and co work team culture is Explicit permission to kill processes that no longer serve us. And so maybe a suggestion is for, you know, any anyone, you know, like on up working on a team or leading teams like

1:23:25 Pick your like what's one process that you either dread doing? Or was really highly noisy. Or is like really expensive in terms of like just a lot of like It it might it but or it's something that's just very manual. Like pick one thing and um first ask, is it still having its purpose? Like, for example,

1:23:44 When like even our planning, like Actually that was my own big first learning when I first shunk clock. I'm like, hey, maybe we should, you know, do a six month roadmap doc. And and but we're gonna do it super lightweight because I don't want to waste a lot of time planning. And I I felt we did a really lightweight process. But that was such a good learning for me because uh the exercise was good to kickstart conversations and then you're aligned. But like three months into it, I'm like, Wait, have we still referenced time? Because so much has changed. So that was also something I like. And so that was also something I changed to uh that I myself brought in thinking, hey, maybe this will

1:24:16 This will help. So always be open to learning and always ask yourself whatever process you have. Is it still serving its purpose? Just because the field is changing so fast. I love that advice. I gotta follow up on this real quick. So what is it how do you think about planning now? Do you do any planning?

1:24:31 Is it just like a month long roadmap? What's kinda like the simple way to Explain where you're at with that. Yeah. I I I call it JIT planning now, like just in time planning. So it it is like around like'cause yeah, I think six months was too long. So now for sure pr some projects will take more than a month, but we try to do like a a month. uh planning like really lightweight. Actually there's not even dogs, it's really just us aligning on a on a little spreadsheet of what we think's important. But even that one I'm I'm kind of thinking through.

1:24:58 Hey, like every week we should probably still keep a like w what we're trying is here are the the month's priorities. And we're gonna try it out, but I have a feeling like every week we'll probably wanna do really quick, like, hey, just to check. Yep, the this is the still this month's priorities. Good. Um but yeah, like n but now we've we've shrunk it to jit monthly planning. So it's monthly meaning for the next month.

1:25:20 Uh sheet. Slash Excel spreadsheet of what we're planning to do for the next month and then every week check in is this still what we're planning to do for the next month. Yeah. It's it's yeah, like look very, very weird. But even that one I I'm also still feeling how can we even

1:25:35 automate this more because I don't I never want it to be feeling like a tax when someone has to you know, up update the spreadsheet. So this is actually, yeah, like just yesterday we're chatting, hey, how can we actually uh Automate this. But speaking to that question, always ask yourself, can we actually automate this better? Like my PM brain is like that's so like how can you not do something like that? Okay, here's what we're thinking for the next month. Let's just check it once a week.

1:25:59 Like it's hard to imagine that not happening. Um And you don't have a lot of items on the spreadsheet, is what I'm hearing also. Yeah, but like we really try focus. So like we will we'll share like here's what we think are the highest priorities and again for that agency of given the priorities, then like everybody's like their kind of like item for how they think uh addresses those priorities. Is there anything that's like here's for the next like six months? bigger bets kind of stuff, or is it just like let's just think one month ahead?

1:26:26 I like so well usually definitely there's themes of where we think the the work and so we'll we'll definitely like um and actually the the whole team will bring everyone together uh like uh every every six months. So there we'll usually kick off like some themes, but then it's really the making sure we keep the pulse of what but because again, like even those themes change. You know, so fast when uh the landscape changes. All right, let's pull up the spreadsheet and let's take a look. Oh man. Man, this this whole podcast could have been just talking about this planning stuff that you do. Okay. I'm gonna have to find someone else to talk about this because this is so interesting, just how

1:27:02 Y'all plan. Uh yeah. Okay. Well With that we reached our very exciting lightning round. I've got five questions for you. Are you ready? Ready.

1:27:11 Okay, first question, what are two or three books that you find yourself recommending most to other people? Oh I will say for Fiction. Uh actually two authors I recommend to everyone. Margaret Atwood.

1:27:25 And uh uh Haruki Murakami. Um, those are just two like I like I I mean, I grew up in Canada, so so I I read a l a lot of that with growing up, but Her books are fascinating'cause it's almost like speculative fiction. Uh

1:27:41 You can kind of squint and say, Okay, could could this actually, you know, like happen to to a society. So so I love her take on speculative fac fiction and Mirakami, I love his um Magical realism. Style. It's it's um but then the one book, because there are authors, but the one book I always recommend to everyone to read at least once a year, or you know.

1:28:03 Um The little prince. I like I I think I'm I'm sure we probably all read it at at some point in our lives, but I think it's a I I read it at least once a year. It just You know, to to remind me to to think about like kind of like what's truly important. Wow.

1:28:18 That doesn't come up a bunch. Okay. I love it. Uh favorite recent movie or T V show you have really enjoyed? I haven't watched TV shows. That's very common across anthropic people I have on the podcast.

1:28:32 But I will share with you what I always have downloaded on my phone so that if I'm on on the airplane, um So there's three movies I I'll always have on my phone'cause I I think they're just so so fun to To To watch if I have time. One is Emily.

1:28:47 Is this uh French movie that oh my gosh, all of these movies are gonna be very old, by the way. It's gonna be like vintage movies. But I I I loved Annally super whimsical. So really highly recommend it to um And even the haven't seen it, it's uh you know, if I if you remember I told you I was, you know, going on a I thought I was gonna be a visual artist, so when I was sixteen, my high school we took a a trip. a high school trip to Paris and that that just I I have so many memories of that and Emily really

1:29:15 Captures the magic, I felt, uh Paris. And the other two are are Ghibli films. Uh I love Spirited Away. That's um it's just such a Like just such a fab I I just love that story. I I I love the yeah, like I I just love every everything about Spirited Away is probably one of my Favorite Ghibli films. And then the third one is another Ghibli film, um, Nusica Valley of the Wind.

1:29:39 And uh I I think about this one quite a bit because if anyone asked me, Hey, how did you Kind of think about You know, all these leadership trades. I think w I watched that movie probably when I was eight or nine. And the the hero Nosica.

1:29:53 And how she seeing how she leads just left such a Like Um just left such a thumbprint in my heart, I guess you could say, that Probably Nusica ha has inspired me to

1:30:05 A lot and uh a lot of my different leadership principles. Wow, what what is that book called again? Uh the the movie's called like Nazica Valley of the Wind, but it was actually based on a on a manga. Valley of the wind. So it's like high output management and it grow. Belly of the wind, Nassau. Sure. Two top management books.

1:30:23 So cool. Okay. Uh Do you have a favorite product you recently discovered? That you really love. Good being up

1:30:29 I mean clothing could be a gadget, could be kitchen equipment. Uh I'll I'll share the product that I'm reminded of how much has made a difference in my life recently. Uh'cause I've been just traveling a l a little bit and so I don't I and I like to travel really light. So I I use whatever shampoo and conditioner, you know, the the hotel gives. And I forgot that um so the the the product that I li and actually have one of their hand. I promise us it's not an infomercial. Okay.

1:30:58 Sweet sisters body care? It's you know, a a a local business on on Whitby Island. Um, but the reason why their product hasn't made such a big difference in my life, uh it's a full line of Organic hair body skin care. But a few years ago I started getting this rash on my nose right here that was really painful, like actually bleeding.

1:31:18 And I could not for the life of me figure out how to stop it. Like I tried not using any lotions. I got cut everything on on my face and it was still really hurting. And then somebody says, What's the shampoo you're using? I'm like, it's the same shampoo I've used since I was, you know, like a teenager. And they're like, maybe your body has now, um, and it's you know, like generic, you know, brown shampoo, they give anywhere, and they said, Maybe your body's just start developing an allergy to it to it because of the chemicals uh in it that I'm like what and so anyways, this was an organic shampoo that I found.

1:31:50 Lo and behold, I use our shampoo and then uh'cause I you don't think that when you wash your hair. It actually then, you know, like goes goes over to the to the rest of your body, but So since then I've switched everything that I used to be sweet sisters, um, but I'm recently reminded of How important this is because after a week of uh yeah hotel

1:32:09 shampoo, I I actually started having some skin reactions again. I'm like ah maybe I should Get like travel size bottles that I can bring with me. This is an awesome pick. I love local local business picks, even big bonus points for that. Uh and by the way, this travel you're doing just For folks that may not know this, there's a There's these code with clot events that are happening.

1:32:29 All over the world. I went to the one in SF, there's one in London, you're going to one in Tokyo. Is that the end of it or is there more b after that? Uh Tokyo is so the yeah, that's next week and that's the last leg of of the trip. Okay, and then probably Probably more in the future. Uh so cool. I love that that's happening.

1:32:45 Okay, two more questions. Do you have a favorite life motto that you find yourself coming back to often in work or in life? Oh. Um so in work I really love to remind folks keep it simple. Like what is the the thing that you're really trying to do well and and focus on that. Do you know, like keep it simple because I think sometimes We could overthink. Um so it's always a good mantra to think about that. Uh and then life, um

1:33:08 You know, probably in a world where you can be anything be kind. I love that one. Uh we were at a at a Montessori school, uh Tour and that's what the teacher had up on the wall. Oh, like it's you know, we have there's so many things going on that you never know what's going on in someone else's life and that one small act of of kindness can make the biggest difference. Like um Yeah.

1:33:31 For for me, actually, that was when do you remember Covid? We were all like working from home during you know, how Um I it it just always really stuck struck with me because I was in these you know back to back meetings and I al and I always one on one's are really important to me. because you know that I actually that time is usually also really important for the other person. It's something that, you know, they've been looking to they might have things they discuss. So I always try like I always really prioritize one on ones.

1:33:58 But during that time my my grandmother wasn't doing well and she was in a home in Canada and because of covet I couldn't Go visit. and uh you know, aunt and mom couldn't go visit. And it was as very rare of

1:34:13 If if they have a helper that can help, we could do FaceTime. But you never know what time that is going to be because you know there's so many People that take care and all of a sudden I got a message from my aunt going, Grandma can FaceTime at like twelve PM today. I'm like, Oh no, there's this one on one that I I've been mean to have and I I just messaged uh you know my report to say I'm really really sorry it's the last minute is it

1:34:35 Okay to and I know it now it's when I say it doesn't seem like it's a big thing'cause it's like but to me it's always really important to keep. But he was like, Yeah, totally, no problem. And For me that was just a small act of kindness. He doesn't He totally didn't make into big deal, but that made the biggest difference to me that I got to, you know, say hi to my grandmother on FaceTime. I love that. Okay, uh final question.

1:34:57 Uh so Boris Cherney when asked him When he had this Interesting insight. Where he said in very important meetings you can often hear Fiona You can hear the click clack if you're in a knitting.

1:35:08 In the background. Uh Yeah. Maybe talk about just what's going on there and what's what are a couple of things you knitted recently. Oh my gosh. Well I I knew it this top.

1:35:21 You make your own clothing. Unreal. This is Javeri Meta for Collade Code. Building itself. You know, Yeah, actually there's this whole fun thing I I think between knitting and programming.

1:35:35 'Cause it's kind of like two stitches knit in a pearl. So it's zero and one. And anyway, so many concepts of stacks and cues you actually could replic like I'm kind of like a compiler. I'm kind of like you know generating a an executable when I knit. Um Yeah, actually it was my my grandma that taught me to to knit when I was eight. I kinda mentioned her and I um going to that yarn shop. And so every time I I I knit I think of her. But I I always like to multitask as you could see. Like yeah, kick up multiple agents. And so anytime I'm sitting and because um I practice enough and gone proficient. I don't have to I don't have to look at at what I'm doing. So it's almost almost like how you know sometimes people have like fidget spinners and such. Uh knitting is just so anytime I'm sitting still, I'm like, Oh, this is time to

1:36:18 You know, like generate more knitting executable. Cause I got so much yarn that if I don't do this, uh yeah, my my yarn I'm I might have a slight yarn problem. I love this. When I uh when I asked Boris what he would do when A G I hits when we don't have to work Uh, he said he's gonna make me so I'm guessing your answer would be just make beautiful coating. Oh my gosh, my dream is to actually open up a a yar store in my grandmother's name and and create that community. Wow, and then co work would help uh you automate everything. That's right, especially invoicing. Oh my God.

1:36:50 Fiona, you're awesome. Uh It's just incredible the work that you and your team are doing. Just Changing the world in such profound ways. Uh and there's no uh It's clear why it's growing so fast.

1:37:02 Uh so good job. Good job over there. Uh I'm just so Well, I'm just really honestly lucky and humble that I get to work with such an amazing team. Like I know how lucky and I am I am and I'm so grateful. But thanks a lot for having me on the podcast as well. This was a lot of fun. Uh, two file questions, where can folks find you online if you are online? If they want to follow up on anything, and how can listeners be useful to you?

1:37:26 Oh, uh so definitely uh I've so I'm on LinkedIn. And I'm sure most people have shared this already, but would love feedback of what's going well, what's not going well, um, also any latent demand that you are all using that might be interesting use cases. You know, I had a friend message me. recently to go, Oh, I'm using Claude to help me generate uh A building plan for my shed. And he actually showed me his whole his whole shed, which was cool. So would would love to hear about that. And then uh yeah, maybe. Also, you know, we talked about

1:37:55 reaching out across oh there's someone whether a small business that you love or f or someone that you feel like hasn't uh you know, assuming all the listeners are super AI pilled, uh yeah, maybe take a time to Hold somebody's hand to show what's um A I might be able to help him with.

1:38:11 Such a good one. That is such a good answer to this question. Especially coming from you. Biona, this was awesome. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks so much for having me, Lenny. Bye everyone.

1:38:22 Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lenny's podcast.com. See you in the next episode.

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