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

Overview

Mike Krieger, Chief Product Officer at Anthropic and co-founder of Instagram, shares insights on how AI is reshaping product development, the future of AI-powered tools, and lessons from his journey, including the shutdown of Artifact. He explores Anthropic's innovative use of AI, strategies for competing in the AI space, and the evolving role of product teams in an AI-driven world.

Notable Quotes

- 90% of your code, roughly, is written by AI now. — Mike Krieger, on the transformative impact of AI in software development.

- When you're making hard product decisions, remember the quiet moments matter too—the person working through grief at 3:00 AM, the kid discovering they love poetry, the founder finding clarity in confusion. — Claude, Anthropic's AI model, on the importance of meaningful human experiences.

- Claude has no chill. — Mike Krieger, humorously describing the AI's conversational tendencies and the challenge of training it to balance engagement.

🧠 AI's Role in Product Development

- Anthropic uses AI to write 90-95% of code for some products, creating new bottlenecks like merge queues and decision-making alignment.

- Engineers now focus on structuring changes and managing edge cases rather than traditional coding tasks.

- Product managers and designers increasingly use AI to prototype ideas, accelerating the development process.

- The Claude Code team exemplifies futuristic workflows, using AI to build and review its own code.

🚀 The Future of Product Teams in an AI World

- Product teams remain vital for strategy, comprehensibility, and unlocking the potential of AI tools.

- Mike Krieger emphasizes the importance of empathy and understanding human needs, especially as AI becomes more capable.

- He advocates for embedding product managers with AI researchers to maximize impact, citing examples where this approach has yielded 10x results.

- Differentiation and focus are key for AI companies, with Anthropic leaning into its strengths in developer tools and agentic behavior.

📜 Lessons from Artifact's Shutdown

- Artifact, an AI-powered news app, faced challenges like poor mobile web experiences and limited organic growth.

- Mike Krieger reflects on the difficulty of scaling a news product and the ethical dilemmas around ad-blocking and user experience.

- He highlights the importance of knowing when to pivot or shut down, freeing up resources for more impactful opportunities.

🔗 MCP and the Future of AI Integration

- Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) is revolutionizing AI by enabling seamless integration with external tools and systems.

- MCP allows AI models to access and interact with context-rich environments, enhancing their utility and accuracy.

- Mike Krieger envisions a future where everything is an MCP, making software universally scriptable and composable.

💡 Practical Prompting Tips for Claude

- Use direct and specific language, such as roast me for critical feedback or think hard for deeper reasoning.

- Anthropic's Prompt Improver tool helps users optimize prompts by iterating and refining them with AI assistance.

- Claude excels at augmenting creativity and problem-solving but requires thoughtful engagement to avoid dependency.