Why Anthropic’s CEO Spends a Third of His Time on Culture

According to Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, investing in company culture is key to maintaining competitive advantage in the AI race. 

Speaking on the Dwarkesh Podcast, Dario says he likes to spend a significant portion of his time ensuring employees are aligned on mission and values to achieve long-term success. 

“I probably spend a third, maybe 40%, of my time making sure the culture of Anthropic is good,” he says. 

“I think we’ve done an extraordinarily good job, even if not perfect, of holding the company together, making everyone feel the mission, that we’re sincere about the mission, and that everyone has faith that everyone else there is working for the right reason.”

Anthropic’s rapid growth phase

Founded in 2021 on a foundation of AI safety, Anthropic has seen significant growth in recent years. 

In February, the company announced it had raised US$30bn in Series G funding, valuing it at US$380bn post-money. 

According to Krishna Rao, Chief Financial Officer at Anthropic, much of its recent growth can be attributed to demand for its AI chatbot, Claude. 

In a company announcement, he said: “Whether it's entrepreneurs, startups or the world's largest enterprises, the message from our customers is the same: Claude is increasingly becoming critical to how businesses work.

“This fundraising reflects the incredible demand we are seeing from these customers, and we will use this investment to continue building the enterprise-grade products and models they have come to depend on.”

Scaling company culture

With this massive growth, Dario says it has become more challenging for him to weigh in on technical decisions.

He said: “As Anthropic has gotten larger, it’s gotten harder to just get involved directly in the training of the models, the launch of the models, the building of the products. 

“It’s 2,500 people. It’s like, there’s just, I have certain instincts, but it’s very difficult to get involved in every single detail. I try as much as possible, but one thing that’s very leveraged is making sure Anthropic is a good place to work.”

According to Dario, a significant aspect of this culture is encouraging trust and honesty. In his approach to leadership, he says he prefers to take an unfiltered approach to “avoid the sort of corpo speak” found in some businesses.

“If you have a company of people who you trust – and we try to hire people that we trust – then you can really just be entirely unfiltered,” he says.

Talent acquisition at Anthropic 

To meet this goal of hiring people the company can trust, Anthropic has said it looks for candidates who are aligned with its long-term vision, often prioritising less qualified candidates who truly resonate with the company’s mission of responsible AI. 

Daniela Amodei, co-founder and President of Anthropic, said in an interview with ABC News that when Anthropic is hiring: “we look for people who are great communicators, who have excellent EQ and people skills, who are kind and compassionate and curious and want to help other people.”

It assesses this through an interview process that often lasts five to six stages, testing candidates on their strategic decision-making, ability to collaborate with AI tools and their ability to communicate well.