Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

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

June 5, 2025

AI Summary

5 min read

🎙️ The Voices & The Context

  • The Format: This episode is an in-depth interview, crafted with a thoughtful and reflective tone as host Lenny Rachitsky engages with guest Mike Krieger, Chief Product Officer at Anthropic and co-founder of Instagram. The conversation explores the intricacies of AI development and product strategy, blending technical insights with personal anecdotes.
  • The Key Players:
    • Mike Krieger: Known for co-founding Instagram and now leading product at Anthropic, Krieger is recognized for his innovative product-building mindset, particularly in the rapidly evolving field of AI.

🗝️ Key Themes & Topics

  • AI Capabilities and Product Development: The discussion centers around the transformative impact of AI on product development, particularly how AI is now responsible for up to 90% of code written at Anthropic. Krieger reflects on the implications of this shift, including emerging bottlenecks and changing roles within teams.
  • The Evolution of AI's Role: Krieger shares his evolving understanding of AI's capabilities, emphasizing how tools like Claude have started to contribute creatively to product strategy, reshaping how teams approach project development.
  • Parenting in an AI World: The conversation also touches on parenting, with Krieger discussing the importance of nurturing curiosity in children as AI becomes increasingly

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **🎙️ Introduction: Mike Krieger**
  • 2 (00:07) **AI and Product Development**
  • 3 (00:23) **AI’s Influence on Product Strategy**
  • 4 (00:39) **Changing Perspectives on AI Capabilities**
  • 5 (01:07) **AI in Product Development at Anthropic**
  • 6 (01:31) **Thoughts on OpenAI vs. Anthropic**
  • 7 (01:47) **Personal Reflections on AI and Parenting**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

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

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