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

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 — Brought to you by: Productboard —Make products that matter Stripe —Helping companies of all sizes grow revenue OneSchema —Import CSV data 10x faster — Where to find Mike Krieger: • X: https://x.com/mikeyk • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekrieger/ — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — 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 — 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/ — 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 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/ . For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com . — 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