Shutting Down Artifact: A Tough Decision

Mike Krieger is the chief product officer of Anthropic and the co-founder of Instagram. After leaving Meta, he co-founded Artifact, an AI-powered news app that I absolutely loved, and joined Anthropic to lead product in 2024.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How Anthropic uses AI to write 90-95% of code for some products and the surprising new bottlenecks this creates

• Why embedding product managers with AI researchers yields 10x the impact of traditional product development

• The three areas where product teams can still add massive value as AI gets smarter

• How Anthropic plans to compete with OpenAI long-term

• How to use Claude as your product strategy partner (with specific prompting techniques)

• Why Mike shut down Artifact despite loving the product, and what founders can learn from it

• Where AI startups should build to avoid getting killed by OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google

• Why MCP (Model Context Protocol) might reshape how all software works

• The counterintuitive product metrics that matter for AI

• How to evaluate whether your company is maximizing AI’s potential or just scratching the surface

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Where to find Mike Krieger:

• X: https://x.com/mikeyk

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekrieger/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Mike Krieger

(04:20) What Mike has changed his mind about regarding AI capabilities

(07:38) How to avoid scary AI scenarios

(08:55) Skills kids will need in an AI world

(11:53) How product development changes when 90% of code is written by AI

(17:07) Claude helping with product strategy

(21:16) A new way of working

(23:55) The future value of product teams in an AI world

(27:18) Prompting tricks to get more out of Claude

(29:52) The Rick Rubin collaboration on “vibe coding”

(32:42) How Mike was recruited to Anthropic

(35:55) Why Mike shut down Artifact

(42:41) Anthropic vs. OpenAI

(47:11) Where AI founders should play to avoid getting squashed

(51:58) How companies can best leverage Anthropic’s models and APIs

(54:29) The role of MCPs (Model Context Protocols)

(58:25) Claude’s questions for Mike

(01:03:15) Claude’s heartfelt message to Mike

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Referenced:

• Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

• Claude Opus 4: https://www.anthropic.com/claude/opus

• Dario Amodei on X: https://x.com/darioamodei

• AI 2027: https://ai-2027.com/

• Tobi Lütke’s leadership playbook: Playing infinite games, operating from first principles, and maximizing human potential (founder and CEO of Shopify): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/tobi-lutkes-leadership-playbook

• Claude Shannon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon

• Information theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory

• TypeScript: https://www.typescriptlang.org/

• Python: https://www.python.org/

• Rust: https://www.rust-lang.org/

• Bending the universe in your favor | Claire Vo (LaunchDarkly, Color, Optimizely, ChatPRD): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/bending-the-universe-in-your-favor

• Announcing a brand-new podcast: “How I AI” with Claire Vo: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/announcing-a-brand-new-podcast-how

• A conversation with OpenAI’s CPO Kevin Weil, Anthropic’s CPO Mike Krieger, and Sarah Guo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxkvVZua28k

• Jack Clark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-clark-5a320317/

• Artifact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artifact_(app)

• Joel Lewenstein on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joel-lewenstein/

• Daniela Amodei on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniela-amodei-790bb22a/

• Boris Cherny on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bcherny/

• Gunnar Gray on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gunnargray/

• The Model Context Protocol: https://www.anthropic.com/news/model-context-protocol

• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell

• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika

• Inside Bolt: From near-death to ~$40m ARR in 5 months—one of the fastest-growing products in history | Eric Simons (founder and CEO of StackBlitz): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-bolt-eric-simons

• Jimmy Kimmel Live: https://www.youtube.com/user/JimmyKimmelLive

• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/

• Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/app

• OpenAI’s CPO on how AI changes must-have skills, moats, coding, startup playbooks, more | Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI, ex-Instagram, Twitter): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/kevin-weil-open-ai

• Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/

• Menlo Ventures: https://menlovc.com/

• Harvey: https://www.harvey.ai/

• Manus: https://manus.im/

• Bench: https://www.bench-ai.com/

• Strategy Letter V: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/06/12/strategy-letter-v/

• Kevin Scott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jkevinscott/

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Recommended books:

• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement: https://www.amazon.com/Goal-Process-Ongoing-Improvement/dp/0884271951

• The Way of the Code: The Timeless Art of Vibe Coding: https://www.thewayofcode.com/

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business when There Are No Easy Answers―Straight Talk on the Challenges of Entrepreneurship: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-Building/dp/0062273205

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

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