PRIORITIZE GROWTH

“I just sent Mike Krieger a cold email. I sent him a cold email saying like, hey, love what you guys do, love the product. I think you guys badly need a growth team, want to chat. And I didn't expect he would respond. And he responds and says, hey, yeah, I'm interested. Let's talk. He said, I'm the only PM that he's hired from cold email.”

“One of the things that we had looking backwards is we actually did not have a large budget. In fact, between 2016, 17, 18, we barely were able to raise a dollar relative to our peers. As a result of that, that made it a constraint. One of the constraints is, okay, you can grow but you cannot spend in order to do it. So in order to do that, you effectively have to actually come up with ideas in a product to actually stand out and make a difference, and have organic growth carry you.”

“We made the decision to refund everyone. That cost us over 40% of the bank accounts. So when you have two weeks of runway, 40% of the bank accounts. And we baked everyone cookies and deliver them at 5 a.m. before everybody woke up. Look, this is like maybe 100-ish customers or something like this. But I think it demonstrates that this was a real value and it's actually my test really, which is like, what are the actions that are naturally occurring inside of an organization?”

“That 10x year on year revenue growth trend has been there since the beginning. I think 2023 was to 100 mil, 2024 was 100 to 1, last year was 1 to roughly 10. And then I look back to when I joined in 2024, revenue was in the hundreds of millions. And just that trajectory to the end of 2024 and 2025... it just has not slowed down.”

“When you think about something like restaurant delivery, you actually get judged on multiple dimensions as a service. We get judged on what restaurants we bring you, certainly whether it showed up on time, and the quality and condition you expect, how much did it cost, if we screwed up, what did we do about it. It's not one thing that you have to be good at actually. It's all of the above. Unfortunately or fortunately, this is literally the game that we're playing where customers are judging us on all of these dimensions.”

“At the end of the day, though, if our app is performing at a higher retention, much higher retention and frequency of use than others, that's how we know whether or not the things that we say actually are making a difference to customers. And so, getting, I think, all of that right very, very early and then building the systems to actually instrument that, as well as to repeat that over and again, I think was very, very important in the development of the company.”

“I personally love watching Iga, especially on the clay because some of those runs she's had, especially at the French Open, have been ridiculous. I mean, not losing games, but the way that she's able to open up the court and play with different spins and shapes to push her opponents back—the way she moves, I think is very dynamic. And I think when she's playing her best, it's fun to watch.”

“I think pressure is obviously difficult, but it means that you've done something to deserve that expectation. So you can kinda use that to give you confidence, and I think breathing always is helpful. I do certain breathing techniques before matches to try to calm the nervous system down if you're feeling nervous and the pressure. But I think you just have to know that it's normal, and it should give you confidence that people expect things of you because that means you've done some pretty good things too.”

“I love to compete. I hate to lose, and I started competing in tennis. And I kinda just got obsessed with the with the process, getting better. Again, the competition, I wouldn't trade competition for anything else. And out of all the sports I played, I was the best at tennis. Right? So I wanted to do that. I really think the sport chooses you. And if you love to compete, you're gonna do what you're good at.”

“We made the decision to refund everyone. That cost us over 40% of the bank accounts. So when you have two weeks of runway, 40% of the bank accounts. And we baked everyone cookies and deliver them at 5 a.m. before everybody woke up. Look, this is like maybe 100-ish customers or something like this. But I think it demonstrates that this was a real value and it's actually my test really, which is like, what are the actions that are naturally occurring inside of an organization?”

“I would definitely say that I know every result in every tournament seems so serious and so the make or break moment, but it definitely isn't. And please, please don't be stubborn and work on the things that you know you need to work on and take some l's if you need to. That's something I could have done better, definitely. I was very stubborn with wanting to win. So do the things that are gonna make you better, and then the winning will come with it.”

“At the end of the day, though, if our app is performing at a higher retention, much higher retention and frequency of use than others, that's how we know whether or not the things that we say actually are making a difference to customers. And so, getting, I think, all of that right very, very early and then building the systems to actually instrument that, as well as to repeat that over and again, I think was very, very important in the development of the company.”

“We are starting to look at how do we automate growth. Our growth platform team is driving this effort called Cache, which is Claude Accelerate Sustainable Hypergrowth. How can we use Claude to automate growth experimentation? And it's delivering results.”

“It's the hardest job I've had in my life. You come into Anthropic, you need to understand that 50, 60, 70 percent of how you operate in the past just fell out the door. We, as Anthropic, are really a model company and an intelligence company first and foremost. And so the lion's share of what has driven our success is our research team.”

“One of the things that we had looking backwards is we actually did not have a large budget. In fact, between 2016, 17, 18, we barely were able to raise a dollar relative to our peers. As a result of that, that made it a constraint. One of the constraints is, okay, you can grow but you cannot spend in order to do it. So in order to do that, you effectively have to actually come up with ideas in a product to actually stand out and make a difference, and have organic growth carry you.”

“At the end of the day, though, if our app is performing at a higher retention, much higher retention and frequency of use than others, that's how we know whether or not the things that we say actually are making a difference to customers. And so, getting, I think, all of that right very, very early and then building the systems to actually instrument that, as well as to repeat that over and again, I think was very, very important in the development of the company.”

“Well, one of the first big differences is the eating out culture in China is very, very high and very, very affordable. Eating out in China is about as affordable as cooking at home. And as a result, nobody cooks. This is one where I'm always on the one hand, so impressed by how far ahead sometimes behavior is in markets like China. And then on the other hand, I have to remind myself that there are differences.”

“One of the things that we had looking backwards is we actually did not have a large budget. In fact, between 2016, 17, 18, we barely were able to raise a dollar relative to our peers. As a result of that, that made it a constraint. One of the constraints is, okay, you can grow but you cannot spend in order to do it. So in order to do that, you effectively have to actually come up with ideas in a product to actually stand out and make a difference, and have organic growth carry you.”

“Well, one of the first big differences is the eating out culture in China is very, very high and very, very affordable. Eating out in China is about as affordable as cooking at home. And as a result, nobody cooks. This is one where I'm always on the one hand, so impressed by how far ahead sometimes behavior is in markets like China. And then on the other hand, I have to remind myself that there are differences.”

“We made the decision to refund everyone. That cost us over 40% of the bank accounts. So when you have two weeks of runway, 40% of the bank accounts. And we baked everyone cookies and deliver them at 5 a.m. before everybody woke up. Look, this is like maybe 100-ish customers or something like this. But I think it demonstrates that this was a real value and it's actually my test really, which is like, what are the actions that are naturally occurring inside of an organization?”

“I would say the best advice he's given me is about ground stroke patterns and how to how to open the court better, finding the the angles. I play good with my depth, but sometimes finishing shorter in the court or bringing them out and in almost will then make the depth even more penetrating and surprising to them. So that's that's very specific, but that is something he told me that I think is really useful for me.”

“When you think about something like restaurant delivery, you actually get judged on multiple dimensions as a service. We get judged on what restaurants we bring you, certainly whether it showed up on time, and the quality and condition you expect, how much did it cost, if we screwed up, what did we do about it. It's not one thing that you have to be good at actually. It's all of the above. Unfortunately or fortunately, this is literally the game that we're playing where customers are judging us on all of these dimensions.”

“At the end of the day, though, if our app is performing at a higher retention, much higher retention and frequency of use than others, that's how we know whether or not the things that we say actually are making a difference to customers. And so, getting, I think, all of that right very, very early and then building the systems to actually instrument that, as well as to repeat that over and again, I think was very, very important in the development of the company.”

“Well, one of the first big differences is the eating out culture in China is very, very high and very, very affordable. Eating out in China is about as affordable as cooking at home. And as a result, nobody cooks. This is one where I'm always on the one hand, so impressed by how far ahead sometimes behavior is in markets like China. And then on the other hand, I have to remind myself that there are differences.”

“Well, one of the first big differences is the eating out culture in China is very, very high and very, very affordable. Eating out in China is about as affordable as cooking at home. And as a result, nobody cooks. This is one where I'm always on the one hand, so impressed by how far ahead sometimes behavior is in markets like China. And then on the other hand, I have to remind myself that there are differences.”

“We made the decision to refund everyone. That cost us over 40% of the bank accounts. So when you have two weeks of runway, 40% of the bank accounts. And we baked everyone cookies and deliver them at 5 a.m. before everybody woke up. Look, this is like maybe 100-ish customers or something like this. But I think it demonstrates that this was a real value and it's actually my test really, which is like, what are the actions that are naturally occurring inside of an organization?”

“Activation is a really big challenge in AI. We always talk about the exponential. The product value that we will deliver in two years time is probably like a thousand X what it is today. The funniest thing is I've noticed internally linear charts are just not cool. Everything is log linear.”

“One of the things that we had looking backwards is we actually did not have a large budget. In fact, between 2016, 17, 18, we barely were able to raise a dollar relative to our peers. As a result of that, that made it a constraint. One of the constraints is, okay, you can grow but you cannot spend in order to do it. So in order to do that, you effectively have to actually come up with ideas in a product to actually stand out and make a difference, and have organic growth carry you.”

“Nerves always exist. Like, people always say, how do you not get nervous? I'm like, well, you don't. You just manage it better. Right? Like little techniques like she mentioned, they don't go away. Everyone has ever played tennis. It's okay to have nerves. And you can acknowledge it too. I have a lot of parents who say you can't say you're nervous. I'm like, you can't deal with the problem if you can't talk about it.”

“When you think about something like restaurant delivery, you actually get judged on multiple dimensions as a service. We get judged on what restaurants we bring you, certainly whether it showed up on time, and the quality and condition you expect, how much did it cost, if we screwed up, what did we do about it. It's not one thing that you have to be good at actually. It's all of the above. Unfortunately or fortunately, this is literally the game that we're playing where customers are judging us on all of these dimensions.”

“When you think about something like restaurant delivery, you actually get judged on multiple dimensions as a service. We get judged on what restaurants we bring you, certainly whether it showed up on time, and the quality and condition you expect, how much did it cost, if we screwed up, what did we do about it. It's not one thing that you have to be good at actually. It's all of the above. Unfortunately or fortunately, this is literally the game that we're playing where customers are judging us on all of these dimensions.”