The following events took place between October 2022 and May 2023. I wrote very little of this down at the time so am recalling from memory, and am rendering the gist of the dialogue rather than the exact words used. I’ve also swapped some pronouns and other personal identifiable details.

Please remember that this is not a description of “what Anthropic is like”, but merely the experience of one guy in a junior role during a short window of time, weighted towards emotionally intense moments because they’re easier to remember clearly and because sharing them doesn’t run afoul of the spirit of the confidentiality agreements I signed. Anthropic is now a massive organization with many silos and secrets and I have very little idea what was or is happening there in some overall sense. But given the enormous power of the AI labs and the paucity of public information about their inner workings, I feel compelled to share the most salient parts of my personal experience. I hope this encourages my former colleagues, and folks at other labs, to fill in the rest of the picture.

I’m at the Anthropic office for lunch. The interviews went well. They want me on board. I’m a little unsure. My other offer is a 2-month contract on the OpenAI governance team, working with a friend on some fun conceptual research. I’m leaning towards taking the OpenAI contract - my long-term relationship just ended, I’m still a little burned out from my startup, and the Anthropic job seems potentially quite stressful.

After lunch one of the co-founders pulls me into his office for a wide-ranging, casual chat about how to make AI go well. It’s very fun - he’s smart, personable, funny, urbane. “The government won’t do anything about AI until it’s far too late”, I opine at one point. “Our strategy has to rely on the market and on civil society.”

He leans forward, his gaze hardening. “You’re wrong there. There are people in Washington - the serious people, you know - watching all this very closely. I speak to them regularly. They trust me.”

In retrospect, that was the moment I decided to join.

“Would you like to pledge to donate two-thirds of your equity?” the recruiter asks me. “All the co-founders have made the pledge”. It somehow feels a bit ambiguous whether the offer is conditional on me saying yes. I say yes.

My first day. The office is a bit cramped - about forty people on two floors of a rather ugly...

fred

fred