Amol Avasare: recommendation

Transcript context

…Okay, it makes sense. The safety piece is really interesting. So I want to spend a little time here. So famously, Anthropic, I think the official name of Anthropic is Anthropic, an AI safety research company. As a growth person, there's this balance I imagine you strike between growing and the mission being, don't grow at all costs. Our goal is AI safety and alignment. How do you balance those two things? How does that impact your job? Look, I think it's something we take very, very seriously, and it is the whole reason the company exists. And if you think about, it's all the way from... It's why they left to start the company. It's deep in our corporate structure itself. So historically, everyone raising money is like, "Go create a Delaware C Corp." And that's the structure you do. And with a corporation, you have a fiduciary duty to maximize returns for shareholders, maximize shareholder value. And from the beginning, they went a different way. We then created a public benefit corporation, PBC, which allows you to legally say that maximizing shareholder value is not the overarching umbrella goal of this company and you can optimize for public benefits. So really, I think it starts from there and it ladders down from there. For us, our purpose, our mission ultimately, is just to make sure that the transition to powerful AI goes well and is net beneficial for humanity. I think internally, we are very excited and I think, honestly, we're very, very optimistic about where this can go, but we also understand what the risks are. And so for us, that top line objective of, " This needs to go well for humanity. This just needs to go well for humanity," that is something that we are happy to take a significant commercial hit for. And we've done that time and time again, right? So we have it like back then, okay, you had Claude, but you don't want to release it because you're like, there's these safety risks. And so there's time and time again that I've seen, we've been happy to take that hit and it's actually worked out well for us in other ways. From like a growth lens, I look at it as like, growth teams can often push the boundaries of what is good user X, UX, et cetera, because they're trying to very, very much eke out metrics at times. When I think about if a controversial test is brought to me, I sort of look at it as like, there's two types of tests that are controversial. One is when that test is so controversial that you just should not run the thing, because the results don't matter because you would not ship it for a combination of brand and sort of customer friendliness and values. And then the second is where it's like, it's controversial. I don't like it. I certainly don't love it, but it's not like a red line. And so you're like, if someone comes to you with conviction and is like, "I have a really good hypothesis around this," and you're like, "I don't love it, but you can run the test and see what impact it has." And if it's a high level of cringe or ick, then I want to see a high level of return for the result for that. I kind of think about everything and like, is it in one or is it in two? And for every company, that one and two is different. I think for us, AI safety is very much in one. I think that it's like, "Yeah, that's why we exist. Yeah, it's fine. We're just not going to do this thing." very company, that one and two is different. I think for us, AI safety is very much in one. I think that it's like, "Yeah, that's why we exist. Yeah, it's fine. We're just not going to do this thing." I think then, there's other things that fall into two, where you're like, heightened sensitivity, but we can try it and see what happens. I think zooming out though, Lenny, one of the biggest mistakes I feel like I see growth teams make, and particularly just hardcore growth practitioners, is just trying to squeeze every last dollar. I think this is like a general principle also in life. If you're a founder raising money, you're just trying to squeeze that last dollar. You don't want to do that because you want people to come back next time as well, is my view. And I think in growth, I think it's really important that you just need to be okay leaving money on the table. And that's a core principle for us as a growth team, where we are very comfortable for going metric impact in order to prioritize safety, in order to protect our brand, in order to hold a high quality bar and to maintain a great user experience. And if you look beyond the short term and like, "Okay, what are the numbers for this quarter?" And you zoom out and you think about what are the very best products out there, you realize this is how they all operate. And that's actually the thing that's going to drive more growth long-term as well. And so I think that actually ties back to safety, where as the risks get higher and the stakes get higher, I think the fact that we are taking a stance and safety is critical to what we do, is actually going to become a significant, it's going to be a significant competitive advantage for us that I think is going to help us in the long run.…

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