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Anthropic's CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram)

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Jun 5, 2025

Guest

Mike Krieger

Mike Krieger, Chief Product Officer of Anthropic and co-founder of Instagram, discusses the future of AI in product development. He reveals how AI can generate up to 95% of code and the new challenges this raises. Mike shares why embedding product managers with AI researchers significantly boosts productivity. He also reflects on the emotional toll of shutting down Artifact, his news app, and stresses the importance of knowing when to pivot. Additionally, he explores the Model Context Protocol's potential to redefine software and offers insights on maximizing AI's impact in companies.

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Episode notes

00:00 / 00:00

AI Gains Creative Insight

Mike Krieger's view of AI changed recently; models can now provide creative, independent-like opinions.
He uses Claude as a product strategy partner, which offers novel insights he had not considered.

00:00 / 00:00

Cultivate Curiosity in Kids

Encourage children to nurture curiosity and the scientific process instead of just relying on AI for answers.
Teach them to ask questions and think independently to avoid over-dependence on AI.

00:00 / 00:00

AI Writes Most Code Now

At Anthropic, around 90-95% of code is now written by AI, especially in the Cloud Code team.
This creates new bottlenecks, like merge queues and pull request management, reshaping product development.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Shifting Perspectives on AI and Its Societal Impact

04:36 • 25min

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Innovative Vibe Coding: Merging Creativity with AI

29:42 • 2min

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Revolutionizing Data Management and Navigating Career Transitions

31:13 • 5min

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Shutting Down Artifact: A Tough Decision

36:01 • 7min

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Navigating AI: Consumer Perception vs. Developer Engagement

42:51 • 12min

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Revolutionizing AI Utility Through Contextualization

54:35 • 4min

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Fostering User Autonomy in AI Design

58:37 • 8min

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The hard thing about hard things

building a business when there are no easy answers

Ben Horowitz

In this book, Ben Horowitz shares his personal and often humbling experiences in the tech industry to offer essential advice and practical wisdom. He addresses various hard decisions and challenges that business leaders face, such as firing friends, managing company culture, handling layoffs, and making tough strategic decisions. Horowitz emphasizes the importance of honesty, resilience, and adaptability in leadership, drawing from his experiences with companies like Loudcloud and Andreessen Horowitz.

The Goal

Eliyahu M. Goldratt

The book tells the story of Alex Rogo, a factory manager who is given three months to improve his underperforming plant or face its closure. With the guidance of his former physics professor, Jonah, Alex learns to apply the Theory of Constraints to identify and manage bottlenecks in the production process. Through this approach, Alex and his team transform the factory, improving efficiency, reducing inventory, and increasing profitability. The novel uses the Socratic method to teach fundamental business concepts and emphasizes the importance of continuous improvement and critical thinking in management[2][4][5].

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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Brought to you by:

Productboard—Make products that matter

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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.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

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