#124: Inside Anthropic's culture interview | Ben Erez & Marc Baselga (co-founders, Insider Loops)

Boom. Boom, boom, boom. We live. We live live. I'm excited about what we're just going to talk about. Because the way this came up was quite unique. So some context. Ben, you've been pretty deep in the interview space, I would say, probably for the last two years. You've coached hundreds of people. You've wrote posts for Lenny's newsletter. You've done a bunch of other content, lighting lessons. And we've been working on Inside the Loops now for coming close to a year. And I think this week was the first time that I hear you being deeply interested about a very specific interview at a specific company. It's the first time that I hear, like, I never heard of you. Like, hey, I'm excited. I'm like, find this interview at Stripe. Super interesting. But this week that changed. You came up to me as like, almost like, dude, I'm fascinated by the culture around Anantropic. So let's start there. Like, why is that interesting to you? Yeah, so you're right. It's kind of I mean, I obviously took a pretty big interest in like product sense interviews at Meta and analytical thinking interviews at Meta. And that kind of let's say that kept me very interested for a couple of years between my Maven course and my Lenny guest posts and templates and co-pilot and all the stuff I did in that space. And didn't take that much interest in like behavioral interviews. I did some content around like Meta's leadership and drive interview, which kind of like the main behavioral interview PMs below level seven go through there. Above level seven, there's some like more specific leadership level behavioral interviews, but didn't really get excited to do content about any of that. And then as we put together the different guides and now as of the time we record this, we have eight guides for different companies. And as it became very clear that Anthropic is, you know, the most popular place or the hottest company for a lot of PMs to want to work. And honestly, a lot of people in other functions as well. It started to become clear and I started to trade notes with some other coaches on the culture interview. And I was starting to wonder like, why is Anthropic having people in different functions go through the same interview? It's kind of like a unique innovation. You could argue that every company does like something like a recruiter screen and that's maybe like a common thread. But this is the first instance that I've seen a company embrace what seems to be a no exceptions policy where every single person interviewing at the company goes through a very specific behavioral interview that is like not a recruiter screen. And so that's kind of... It's the same interview, right? It's the same exact interview, so I'll tell you what I find interesting about it. It's not just every person interviewing at Anthropic has to go through it. But it seems to me like, and I don't know internally whether there's like what the exact criteria is, but it seems like people from basically every function in Anthropic are able or eligible to maybe get trained to run this interview. So a PM, PMs that I've been coaching for Anthropic interviews have had their culture interview run by people in like marketing, IT, engineering, security. Like I've never been interviewed by an IT guy in my whole PM career, right? But apparently at Anthropic, the IT guy should be able to filter you for culture fit just like anyone else at the company. And I think that's super interesting. It doesn't mean they don't have additional interviews to filter you specifically for like the PM role or the role you're going for. But you need to pass the culture interview. And I know people that didn't pass the culture interview and that's where they tanked even though they did well in the other stuff. So I think that's another piece that's really interesting for me. And then the last thing I'll say is that, and I'll pause for just kind of, I'd love to get your reactions to this, is it's not a typical behavioral interviews with like tell me about a time. Like, you know, a handful of tell me about a time stories like two to three where they probe and go deep. It's actually more common that these interviews cover a wider breadth of questions, like, you know, maybe like 10 to 15 questions and a 45 minute slot, but like a little bit of small talk in the beginning, a little bit of small talk at the end where you get to ask them questions. So I have had a candidate tell me he got asked like a dozen questions in like a little over 30 minutes, like 30, 35 minutes. And so you, as a result, it feels kind of like very, I don't say checking the boxes, but it's kind of like question, question, question, question, question. It seems to be like the pattern from what I can tell. And maybe some probing if someone's really confused about what you said. But I've found that to be a very interesting format for like a behavioral interview that, you know, and I, you know, we obviously have some thoughts on like what they're evaluating, you know, when we're putting together our guide. But the idea that there can be a single interview that everyone can, well, that it'll filter out the wrong people and it'll attract the right people with no regards to like their actual skill set, but it's all about culture is interesting. It's interesting to me. Yeah. So maybe to recap. So the reason why kind of this has been probably one of the most interesting loops or specific interview instances inside a loop you've seen in a long time is one is like the first instant that you're aware of and since you're kind of time coaching where every single employee has to do the exact same interview and no matter the function, no matter the seniority. And so that's one. I think the other one that you mentioned is the fact that anyone can do, can be the interviewer, right? And I think that to me is actually one of the most interesting ones because then it's like where my head goes is like, okay, so what signal are they trying to look at for something? Like if I start to get like a, if it's a behavioral question, right, about like my product, an example of like a product challenge that I navigate, like how much context about what good products looks like, does that IT person have? But we should probably table that for another point. But that one to me is interesting. But they're not filtering for that. Exactly. Yeah. They're basically saying, we're willing to have an interview in this loop that will have no job specific. Totally. Yeah. Like skills specific or I mean, arguably experience specific filter. So then the question has to be like, well, what are they evaluating? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Which I'm sure we'll get into in a sec. And then the last piece that was interesting is that it seems like a lot of the behavioral interviews, usually like they have one or two questions and then they have like probing questions. Right. And it's almost like there's like these expectations that people are going to come in with like a polished, you know, star story. But, you know, it seems like in this interview, like you're basically peppering people with questions nonstop, which means like, you know, let's say it's a 45 minute interview, which I think it is. And, you know, like they're asking 10 questions. And right. That's like, and, you know, I'm assuming you're going to leave some time at the end for you to ask questions. Like we're talking about like, you know, three minutes per question. Right. So like also the way you communicate and the way you prepare for this is very different than like the classical, like, you know, super polished start to finish story, which I think is interesting as well. And so and but I'm curious, maybe like before we go deeper, like, you know, we've heard about this interview a long time ago. I think what I'm interested about and to hear from you is like, what has changed? Like, how has your perception changed about this interview since the first moment you heard it? Like, I'm like, kind of the kind of maybe what misunderstandings you had about it. And especially now that you've coached people through it, you've heard more feedback. We've heard candidates go through it. Like, how maybe how has your perspective changed over time about this interview? I would say my perspective on the interview started evolving when I began to see people that I've directly helped get the offer because it helped me understand what the characteristics of someone who provides like good answers, I guess, passing answers to the interview are relative to someone who doesn't offer those, like doesn't pass the interview. And so I guess like getting clarity in my head on what I think they might be evaluating is what's changed for me. I don't know if they've changed anything in the interview since we started tracking, tracking it. But one thing, but the other thing I'll say is like, we have noticed that there's very real differences in the interview loops at Anthropic based on the org someone's going for, the role that someone's going for. And so in a sense, as we started to track all these different variants of interviews there, the fact that the culture interview stayed present. And then I started again to talk to some other people that do coaching and like one of the most common interview types that's being coached on like almost all of tech coaching right now is the culture interview because it's just the most common like engineers are all having to get ready for it. PMs are getting ready for it. Marketing people are getting ready for it. So, you know, just kind of the part of me that's kind of just like tracking where demand is and tracking what people are interested in is also kind of something that seemed to kind of increase as more and more people want to work at Anthropic. Anthropic is like at an all time high from a popularity perspective, you could say. I mean, maybe a month ago is a little bit more, you know, things are changing. Open AI is getting cool again. Google is getting cool. I don't know. Like things keep changing, but I'd argue Anthropic's at large as hot as it's ever been right now. Yeah. And so I think that is another reason I got interested. As far as I can tell, they haven't changed the interview and in the last few months at least since I've been paying very close attention to it. With that said, though, I am hearing more instances of shadowers in the interview. And what that means is you show up to an interview. There's two people there. One is running the interview. One is quiet in the background, which makes sense to my second point, which was how like everyone at the company, anyone at the company could run the interview. The way that they do that is they're training. Like my guess is anyone can raise their hand internally to get trained on this interview because there's like a ton of it happening. Like it's like the most common interview happening at the whole company. So anyone can get trained for this interview. So my guess is there's a lot of people internally that are learning how to run it. And knowing what I know about interviews and calibrating interviewers, I think there is likely to start emerging a very wide spectrum of skill in the interviewers because like not everyone's going to be equally skilled at running an interview like this. So the way that they calibrate is going to be very interesting for me. You know, in full transparency, I don't have, we don't have much intel on like internal training at Anthropic at this point on how they calibrate interviewers. That's very, it's a moving target. Even if we did, like, I don't know how much I would trust it next week. And they're growing quickly, right? And they're growing quickly. They're making a lot of hires. So anyways, I think the way they do a lot of stuff is going to change in the coming months, but it seems like this one is going to stick. The culture interview is going to keep happening. The thing I'll say, though, is when there's an interview that everyone needs to pass in order to join the company, that you do kind of have a baseline expectation that anyone at the company is like well-equipped to pass that interview. So therefore, anyone at the company might be well-equipped to run the interview. And so I don't think it's like a crazy idea. Like, I think it's possible that this is a good, it's a good idea. But it does require a lot of internal clarity on what they're looking for. One of the most interesting anecdotes I got from someone who's getting briefed by someone they knew at Anthropic for their interview. So they shared this with me as someone that was coaching them. But they said that they got intel that there's kind of, so you know, two of the required readings for everyone interviewing for the culture interview is to read two essays by Dario Amodei, the founder, one of the founders and the CEO of Anthropic. One is called The Adolescence of Technology and one is called Machines of Loving Grace. And when you could think of those as one was written in 2024, one was written in 2026. And the first one is kind of more about like the bull case or the upside of AI and the light, like the light. And then I would say the more recent one is more about the shadow, kind of like the risks and... More like the Doomer, the Doomer kind of like point of view. Right. And the idea with the second one is everyone already gets the upside. Like, I don't need to sell you guys on the upside. Let's talk about the downside. And so what's really interesting to me is like, and to tie this to the intel that the person, the candidate that I was coaching got, is there are not everyone who works at Anthropic falls into the same point on the spectrum between pessimism and optimism, let's say, about AGI and about what AI enables for us. Some people are working at Anthropic because they're primarily pessimistic and they kind of like accept the need to think about risk and to think about downside protection. But then some people go to Anthropic because they're primarily worried about the risk and they don't spend much time, if at all, thinking about the upside. They're all entirely focused on the downside and protecting against risks and protecting humanity and stuff. And so what they were told is like, you don't know who you're talking to. Yeah. You go into the culture interview. Yeah. And so you can't actually tell them what they want to hear. All you can tell them is what you actually think and how you came to think what you think and to provide a balanced answer that acknowledges the light and the shadow as you talk about your motivations for working at Anthropic. Yeah. I realized maybe we're hanging out in a little bit of like an abstract area. So I think like there's maybe two things that we can make it more concrete. I think one is like, I think it would be helpful to like maybe like we go deep, like kind of maybe breaking down like what we think is unique about Anthropic versus maybe other kind of like cutting edge like companies. Like what makes the company unique? Because I think then like understanding like what that company is. I'd love to start with like the questions that get asked, because I think when you know the questions that get asked, it can kind of start to bring some clarity to all the other stuff. Cool. We can do that too. I was going to go there next. So then it's like kind of like we have that frame. But yeah, let's maybe share some of the questions that are asked and then we can bring that knowledge. Yeah. So, you know, you don't, we're not going to go through all the questions that we've uncovered, but I'd say some of the questions that get asked are things like, you know, what are your thoughts on AI safety and the risks of developing advanced AI systems or why Anthropic? And why Anthropic usually is followed by, well, how is that different than what OpenAI is doing? Another question could be walking through a project that you're really proud of. Another one could be, what is something you think about AI development that most people in the industry would disagree with you about? Another one, how do you care about, how do you reconcile caring about accessibility of Anthropic's best models while acknowledging that, you know, they're like the economics, like recognizing the economics and how not everyone can get access to the latest and best models. Those are kind of like a sampling of like some, a handful of questions. If there's any other ones that you want to flag that you think are kind of like. I mean, you touched into this, but one that I've heard a good amount too is like, basically like a lot of the questions about like, how do you think about safety? It's almost like this. And I think we saw this with like the way they kind of almost, I wouldn't say confront, but like the way they stand up against the US government. It's like basically like that idea of like, how do you think about like Anthropic's tradeoff between revenue and safety? Like, I think that's like a lot of times like the tension that they're trying to avoid and they're trying to pick people that are in the right one. So. Yep. Another one that I know comes up is like, tell me about a time that you had to put your neck on the line to do what was right. You know, like those kinds of questions. Tell me about a time where you made a, where something went really wrong with what you're working on. Yeah. I wonder what would be fun to maybe, based on what you know, how would you answer that question? Right. Like, if you want to, if we don't want to, but like. I hate that you're doing that. I mean, you're, you're, yeah. I can tell you how I coach, I can tell you how I coach these. And to make it specific. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe let's get specific on a, on a question just like we have like a real question to ground ourselves of and like how you coach people to go through it. So for example, like, how do you think about anthropic straight off between revenue and safety? Like. So with that kind of question, you know, it's a good, it's a good question. So like the way you, first of all, there's only so much I can do as a coach to tell someone how to answer that question. Like they need to have their own answer. Right. So if someone's asking, Hey, how should I approach that? I'd be like, well, how do you think you should approach that? Right. And the reason is because what I think actually doesn't matter as an answer to this question. I'm trying to kind of help them figure out what they think. So the idea that safety and revenue come as a trade-off is a assumption. And so the first thing I might do when I'm coaching someone is like, do you believe in that? Do you believe the premise that there is a trade-off between revenue and safety? Do you have to compromise revenue to grow safety or do you have to compromise safety to grow revenue? Or is it a false, is it a false trade-off? Right. So I might ask someone those kinds of questions to help them understand what they think and then make that thinking more legible to me. So like as they answer that, I'm like, that's kind of confusing. Can you like read that back? Or are you saying this? Are you saying that? Because there's not a right answer to this question. I'm not trying to tell them that is a correct answer, an incorrect answer. I'm trying to tell them that makes sense or that doesn't make sense. Right. So I either follow your thinking or I don't follow your thinking. Like I said, I'd rather not get into like trying to answer that specific question than like say what I think about it because I don't think that's as helpful. A question about, you know, tell me about a time you did something above and beyond outside your mandate. What they're trying to learn here is your initiative, but particularly your initiative, the best kind of story for this, this question is going to be where you were working on something that was really important and there was a lot of pressure to ship. But some like you had very strong conviction. Something could go really wrong if you say yes. Like if you just kind of give in and just say you just let it go out. You thought something really bad was going to happen. And then you, you did, you basically escalated all the way to making your case known. Someone finally listened, agreed with you that there was a risk. And as a result, like, you know, you had an awesome, your launch went smoothly and there wasn't really a bad, a bad thing that happened. That's a really good story. I would say the flip side of this question is also the flip side kind of story. Tell me about a time something went terribly wrong. Like something you worked on went really wrong. That's where almost like identical scenario, but you maybe gave in or you got over, overridden and the thing went out and something really bad happened. You know, and I'd say people should dig deep. Like if they have a story about like someone died, right? like if they have a story about like someone died right like size a result of this thing someone died or someone got severely injured or you know one of our customers went out of business you know like like something like really bad happened as a result of something that you could have stopped if you had put your neck on the line those that's a really good story there and what you're doing is you're demonstrating you're not perfect these things are hard these are really really difficult situations to find yourself in and because Anthropic has these situations for breakfast lunch and dinner like you're not going to be kind of destabilized by high high tension conversations like you know the fact that their CEO is at you know dealing with the White House on a regular basis is probably something that flows down to the rest of the org chart if I had to guess from a tension and pressure perspective especially if you're working on the model safety side of things but also if you're working on the application side and you want to ship something you like that there's security concerns writers or safety concerns right you got to be able to navigate those conversations knowing there's a good faith discussion happening so I think those are that some examples that's some examples there as far as like why Anthropic that's we could talk about that too I think that's that's the one everyone's gonna have to be really prepared for yeah like yeah let's hang out on the what went terribly wrong or what is something or a story you were you know you had to really step in and do the right thing even though it was maybe like really hard or like maybe you put some social capital on the line like how can that they're asking so many questions in a short period of time like how how much depth are they like trying to get to like because for example like are you trying to like are they trying to for you to this can deconstruct like you know your mental model for like how you make decisions and like are they trying to break down to you like hey like what like what are some learnings and how are you gonna apply it to the next thing and like maybe what are some exceptions to the rule that that that you that maybe would have do you would have lead you to do things differently like like how did you have a sense of like kind of like how much probing there is yeah I mean I think I think they're trying to evaluate your ability to distill complexity and nuance into very simple to understand language so like communication like I'd be shocked if someone gets the job at Anthropic and they're not a good communicator I think that seems to be like very important and because because strong communication is usually indicative of clear thinking right so clear communication is indicative of clear thinking the second thing is I think they're evaluating your intellectual honesty so being able to say I don't know or I didn't know or I'm I'm like my thinking is flawed it was flawed I know better now I have a growth mindset I like to use data to make decisions like that kind of thing at the same time I think they want to see this kind of like second-order reasoning I mean you could say it's kind of like related to intellectual honesty but I think they're really trying to understand does this person understand how like if they if they click if they you know hit this domino this other domino can fall on this other domino can fall on this other domino can fall so do they have the ability to like think about downstream implications or second-order effects of decisions and and then I think they want to evaluate your authenticity that you know who you are and you know what you believe and you also and actually it's okay if there's tension between what you believe in what anthropics founder writes about or CEO writes about they're not looking to hire a bunch of people who think exactly who agree exactly with what Dario thinks I think they want to cultivate a culture where people can people wrestle with you know they have this saying this value hold light and shade it's one of their seven values and the idea that they want to bring people in who can demonstrate their appreciation of the light and the shade in making these decisions and then you know things like dealing with adversity you know resilience I suspect those are some things are evaluating as well but like with every behavioral interview you know I think people like the seven values that that anthropic has or are really good places to kind of think about what they're looking for yeah so it sounds like they're not looking for almost like you know zealots or people that are gonna follow the leader and be like you know whatever that the master says we will do and I think I'm guessing there's still there are some things that are kind of non-negotiable right that you kind of need to be aligned from an ideology point of view yeah can I can I just like pull up our guide does this yeah for a second because I want to show those seven values because I think it's actually indicative of what what they're yeah what they're evaluating are you seeing my screen with the seven values section okay so you know you could say so the values are like you know acting for the global good and here they want to see like do you zoom out to the societal impact or do you stop at like a user level thinking hold light and shade we talked about that already be good to users so users are not just like the people clicking buttons but it's like the ecosystem the stakeholders like the policymakers employees communities fourth do the simple thing that works so you know don't over complicate things don't over engineer solutions just be product yeah exactly fifth be helpful honest and harmless so you know high trust low ego be honest about your failures six put the mission first so you know some someone was asked a flavor of this question which is like would you accept your stock going to zero if anthropic decides not to release models for safety reasons that's a hard question right and then number seven but by the way there's I understand there's we have to we have a guide update we need to make based on recent news with a Pentagon stuff because that's that's an evolving situation but lastly igniting a race to the top on safety so basically the game theory of you know publishing safety research that helps your competitors and advocating for standards that constrain the product like why would you do that stuff so to your point you don't want a copycat you don't want like an army of clones of Dario but you want people who really embody these values and as a reminder Dario I believe is one of seven co-founders if I'm not mistaken at anthropic and one thing I learned actually getting ready for this conversation which I didn't really come up and recreating the guide is if here let me stop screen-sharing okay I believe anthropic was founded by the people that were running the safety organization at open AI I think the the safety team or some of the handful of the safety people at open AI left to start anthropic because they wanted to build an organization that is almost safety first like you know they they're so convinced of the upside market value not needing to be the primary driving factor of the company that they founded the whole company leading from a place of safety first and you know that's why they encourage people to read those essays from Dario because those essays are like very opinionated and they are very like you kind of get a glimpse into the mind of the people that started anthropic which is a very different place like the being in their mind is a very different place than being in Sam Altman's mind you know and I based on everything I've all the interviews I've listened to and watched with Sam Altman and I'm not saying he doesn't care about safety but like I don't think I think Sam if I had to guess open AI built open AI more from a place of really maximizing the upside of like what what's possible and thinking of safety as like something that needs to be kept in check as a guardrail as they do that and I think at anthropic it's like inverse it's like safety has to be the anchor and the first thing and then all the upside kind of emerges once you've you know almost like without much work like that like like the upside is almost easier than like the safety yeah it's like almost like yeah hard hard decisions easy life easy decisions hard life type of thing like that's kind of what came came to mind to me and yeah I mean you see it with the myth mythos release and the way they went about it I mean some people will say that oh it was marketing and then it was interesting to see what happened with the government when when they actually decided to stop to stop allowing people using Fable because it said and then anthropic kind of got upset about it like that was actually pretty interesting I want to take a moment before we get back to the episode to tell you about Insider Loops this is a company that Mark and I started because we just believe this should exist companies should be offering candidates the best possible preparation for their loops yet what they give them is vague and often not very actionable so we took the matter into our own hands we've put together well-researched and continuously updated guides for PMs interviewing at companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Stripe, DoorDash and more if you're getting ready for PM interviews at those companies go over to insiderloops.com and learn more now back to the episode on that point I think maybe that's a good time to get into the like why Anthropic question and like it sounds like that's kind of a question that from the people that I've talked to it comes out basically in every interview and and I think I actually think a lot of I would say most companies that I'm aware of ask that question about their companies at some point and I think you know in their cases like that I think they're just like trying to do like it's almost like a checkbox like hey like how much has this person prepped enough to care right and like do they have a point of view and I think for Anthropic it like goes like a bunch of level deepers like hey like we know there's and I think part of it my sense is that they know like hey like AI is super hot and probably a lot of people are and of course that are gonna come in and be super prepared but like there's something like but have they done the extra mile and they'd really understand our ethos especially given that maybe like that you know someone is might be interviewing another top frontier and model company so yeah well based on your experience like really what's what are they trying to get to in this question and I'm like how is it different than other like why this company questions that we've seen in other guides or companies? So what's different and by the way OpenAI ask this to and Google will ask like basically direct competitors well what I'm getting at is if Stripe asks you why Stripe it's not obvious why you would contrast why Stripe with oh and here's why not OpenAI right yeah yeah it's like you well and then Stripe they might be like well pay yeah PayPal is another one but what I'm trying to get to is like Stripe's kind of like the hot like that the one gold standard company. It's kind of a monopoly. If you're gonna be a fintech PM and you want to be at like the best company in fintech I hope no one else listening is working in fintech takes this the wrong way but like Stripe's kind of like in a category of its own right now whereas at Entropic it's like why Entropic you might initially say something that is like oh because like I really believe in the potential of AI or like the mission really speaks to me or I've been following you guys for years and like I just love the products you're cranking out or I don't know like that people can come up with all these questions and the answer that will be like well but why you know but there's other companies that are creating really compelling like AI products why why why us you know like why us in particular why not open it how is that different than what opening eyes doing right and so what they're I'm not gonna get into like what you need to say to answer that but the idea is they're trying to they're trying to uncover a few things they want to hear that you're there for the mission and they really really mean that like they need to hear you're drinking the Kool-Aid before you work at the company okay like you're already one of us it's kind of how they should be feeling when you come out of the culture interview okay and is that just as simple as like just alluding to it like like how do you add authenticity to one of those answers right like because that's what I'm thinking about it's like you basically you basically can say I mean like I'm trying the reason I want to get into the answers because the good answers could potentially divulge the source but something that kind of says this is the only like AI lab that I would consider working for for these reasons hmm like this is what's wrong with this other like I'm a big fan of the products that you know like what they're doing at Google's great what they're doing at open yeah it's great but for this reason I just can't I would not work there like there's this really like I just couldn't I don't think I could really bring my best self to work every day at this company for this reason I couldn't be myself to do my best work at this other company for this reason and I believe so much in what you guys are doing here anthropic that I like I would do this for free like I would work here for free I've heard that answer okay and so they want to hear this kind of like kind of like fanaticism almost about just how perfect anthropic is for you specifically this is not a good time to convey I like this category of company or I like to I want to be working on AI or this is gonna be really successful and I want to be part of something that's growing and successful right those are very flat answers for this question you want to be really specific what about anthropic specifically resonates with you as a person go deep like think about like relation like health issues you've had and your excitement about the product being able to like solve those or if you have a grandparent that has Alzheimer's or something and you believe that you know responsibly responsible AI can really prevent that for the next generation or for your parents because it could be genetic like something like really deep like I'm joining this because there's something really important at stake for me personally and I want to spend every minute I have working on ensuring that this extremely hard to do but possible thing happens and making sure it happens in a way that's as beneficial to my kids as possible like I want my daughter to grow up in a world that has you know certain things are true and my fear is that if I don't get involved with this and something goes wrong I might never forgive myself for not having you know contributed to this going in the right way and I and I think that given my experience I'm happy to tell you any I'm happy to tell you about any stories you're interested but I think I have the right kind of moral character and appreciation for nuance to contribute to a system like this in a way that really captures the responsibility that it comes with you know that appreciates that responsibility yeah you know that kind of like heavy answer yeah can I play it back because I just want to make sure that like because I think there's two important elements that I picked up on I think one is the there has to be like a personal like a tie to like a personal story and that's like very genuine and authentic and real and I say that that's yeah super that's gonna make your answer way stronger right so it's like almost like hey I'm this is a this I'm a missionary right like I'm here because like I believe this and and I think it has to sound authentic otherwise I think then just like it's just ugly if you like it just like it sounds superficial and the other one is to these were interesting right like you kind of almost have to like go deep into your research of like why this is very unique about Anthropic right because like it seems like you can just not be because I care about safety right be like oh no like opening I has like an Oracle of like 300 people in safety like why don't you go work there right or XCI actually really cares about safety even though like you know Elon can be a loose cannon that they do understand that and actually Elon was one of the first people that funded open AI and for those exact same reasons he's really worried about it so like I still don't understand why why Anthropic so it's almost like you need to like go like four or five wide level deeps why Anthropic and and you almost expect that the interviewer knows very well what those competitors are doing and kind of like they kind of know a bit better like what's what's fundamental they know how they're they're unique exactly they know how they're unique do you know and do you know question exactly like and that's actually you know I was telling you in the pre-recording this is as close to like a cult as any of the companies that we cover and I mean that it kind of in the most flattering way sometimes the best companies are like cults and I was I was even telling you kind of reminded me a little bit about my fraternity about how kind of like everyone can you know any brother can interview any pledge or whatever like that and in this sense like once you join Anthropic I suspect there's a lot of internal reinforcement of what makes us different what makes us special what makes us unique what makes the other guys because they're very they're engaged in a deep competition I'm sure everyone I'm sure every one of them is being asked by their friends by their significant others by their parents how how is what you're doing different I just saw an ad that was like you know from from Anthropic I saw this other ad from open AI these ads like look the same you guys say you're completely different what's what's the difference between you guys right why and so they they all need a story in their head on why they're different and if they're like I won't work for those guys I would only work for Anthropic I would only I wouldn't work at open AI I would only work at Anthropic it's like well you know you're really smart so like what are the reasons right and so they each had to come in their own way to some version of a compelling answer right so they know there's a lot of answers and they know there's a lot of reasons it's kind of like why this religion versus that religion it's not that different you know like why Christianity versus Islam or Judaism you know it's like you can kind of get pulled into like or why the sect of Christianity versus this sect of Christianity and so you know people there's not a right answer per se for why you should do any of this it's more about what resonates with you personally what compels you what draws you and then being able to like articulate that to someone who's in the cult already you know like and so you don't really have to convince them why Anthropic is special you just have to convince them why that that that you know that you belong yeah you know like you're one of them that's kind of what they're trying to figure out in this interview yeah yeah is that too is that too high-level philosophical or is that like no no I think this just doesn't make sense right and yeah where my head is going is like is this sustainable right like us like as the company grows like will will the signal dilute because like it's just like they just like the level of intensity of the missionaries in recruit will go down because like it's like almost or and that I disagree with I I think as a I proliferates there's gonna be more and more people taking this stuff seriously is my my assumption yeah well I think it's gonna be harder and harder to ignore yeah yeah I mean I think kind of where I'm going with this is there's a lot of smart people that want to work for Anthropic maybe they're not like let's say the zealots or like they're not like just like you know they don't really care that much about safety but they know that they need to sound like they care about safety right and yeah and I think if they're smart enough that they can deceive or like pass this sniff test because they know exactly what they need to say what they care about what they're looking for and they can just back engineer here's what I need to say and they will they will get it done and my guess is that as Anthropic gets hotter and hotter as a company there's gonna be more and more of those people as a company, there's going to be more and more of those people that want to work there. Not because of the mission, but because also like the benefits that come from having a job there. Right. Like the brand equity, the talent density, and the financial upside, the financial upside. So yeah, that's kind of like my, like, I think you're, you're, you're wondering how effective this interview will be when, like, will it continue to filter out the wrong, the wrong people and filter in the right people. And by the way, this is not a productive discussion to have just because I think it's just like very philosophical. But like, I think to summarize, I think what I'm saying is I think there's some mercenaries that are going to inevitably going to kind of feel like, figure out how to filter themselves in. Right. And then I think the question is like, is there going to at some point that ratio of missionary to mercenary going to like, almost like flip and then at that point, it's like those people. I think it's almost, it's almost a moot question to me because, first of all, I think this type of interview is probably going to evolve. And I think the way it's going to evolve is it's going to try to kind of like get better and better at getting the signal that they need as they grow. And that's sick. So presumably, if you pass this interview, it should get harder to fake an answer like with that. That's not authentic. The interviewer should get better at sussing out people who are not authentic. The extreme version of this is like why connecting you to like a wire, you know, like a polygraph or something and asking one of these questions and seeing if this guy's bullshitting me or not. Right. That's like the extreme. I don't think you're ever going to have to pass up. Never say never. I mean, they have the best AI models in the world. Right. And they're going to literally be recording you and then like analyzing your voice, potentially. I can totally see them using their AI to filter for culture, you know, to evaluate body language and all that stuff. And so, you know, there's there's really no reason to believe they won't, assuming they take this threat as seriously as I think they're taking the threat, like they will not hold back punches and making sure the right people work at the company and getting the wrong people out of the company, in addition to preventing them from entering in the first place. So so my point is like. There will be people that fool the system, that trick the system, that I mean, the extreme version of that is someone who's literally trying to do harm, infiltrating the company so that they can do harm, but having to mask themselves as someone who's a missionary in the right direction so that they can come and do the thing that they're actually a missionary for in the wrong direction. Right. That's kind of like the complete failure state where they lose trust with the public because one of someone that works at the company does something really sketchy that endangers the whole company. So they're invested in getting it right. I think the more the more interesting question to me is not, you know, can they keep filtering for culture? I think the more interesting question for me is kind of like, why don't other companies do this? Like isn't that an interesting, isn't it interesting that how much we all talk about culture. And yet this is the only company that we've seen that has like a dedicated interview that every single person at the company goes through designed to ensure fit with like the company's mission and values. Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And I think the way I would think about why that is the case, I think I wonder if there's ever been like a technology that's growing as fast as AI that has the potential to like change as quickly and be as harmful and it sounds like the people that started the company kind of sell what it could turn and realize that, you know, this is actually super important. That's actually like the people, the people that are like us, the people that are not like us, it's like, they just kind of like fit into this vibe and think about this way. Like, and they probably could see like what the two disagreements look like in practice in reality. Right. So I wouldn't say that we're like, you know, equally smart, some of the best PhDs, researchers in the world, but like they could just like, but when they were faced with those trade-offs, they would answer very differently. Right. So I think like they probably got enough data points and realize, hey, actually that's like, I think there's also an element of differentiation, right? Like, like what, like, and I think it's differentiation in terms of like why work for someone, but also like attracting the right talent. I think they probably realized that one of the limiting factors for growing an AI company where there's very limited people of talent is you need to do something uniquely different. And otherwise, you know, you're just maybe fighting for who has the most compute, who has, who pays the larger, right? So I think in that sense, if you can really appeal to something that doesn't have a monetary value or perspective, anything like that, that's like, that's an edge, right? So and I think the other element is that I just don't really think a lot of companies think about culture since day one. I actually think an observation that I had in my career is that the companies that think about culture from day one are usually companies that are started with a second time founders or third time founders. Because I think like the first time founders are kind of just like obsessed about surviving product market fit and, and, and building the product and, and they don't really even think about like the importance of culture until later on when they're like, oh shit, like I'm not able to hire the right people or, and we're not able to like agree. Like I saw that firsthand with, with Asana, right? So Asana was started by employee number seven at Facebook and the co-founder of Facebook and like two superpersons, like, you know, like Dustin Moskowitz was co-founder, like roommates with Mark. And there's a lot of things that probably he didn't like about the way Meta operated. So the first product, they always joke that the first product that they built at Asana was a culture. And then they decided to build a tool, right? And that's like, and they were super, super intentional about the people they would hire and like the vibe that they decided around the office. And almost to the point to like that culty, yeah, culty and to like, uh, like it had some consequences, right? Like, for example, like for a long time, we've had a really hard time finding engineers that would like, you know, meet that vibe and meet that culture. And so I think that also like didn't help like grow as fast as maybe some of their competitors, but, and by the way, just curious, what's an example, I mean, we, we went pretty deep on Anthropics, what Anthropics is evaluating in its culture. Can you give an example of something that was really important for a culture fit at Asana? Yeah. Um, basically like this balance of like, give and take, um, full responsibility. And like, that was like something that like, it was really important, um, to, to everyone. Um, I think balance in general, like, like just like making sure that like everything you do, you do with balance and that you're consistent, uh, was, was really important and then like mindfulness and, um, kind of like, almost like working hard, but also like realizing that, um, this is like a marathon, um, and, and that like, you know, you can not like, so like not, not burning out, like it's almost like kind of like consistent velocity was like a big thing that we would say. Um, what else? I mean, it's been a while, but, um, let me, let me maybe, uh, refine, cause that's helpful. Let me refine a little bit more in the spirit of kind of like when someone, when someone was like interviewing there and they wanted to figure out why Asana, would you guys also expect them to have a good answer to like why Asana versus some other specific, no, no. We can talk about what you like about the company in isolation would be good enough. Yeah. Yeah. But I think, so I think what Asana did, like, that was interesting is like, they, like there were, which I think it's why it's smart to have this kind of company. Why it's like, since they, um, were so careful about the culture and like, they were like super, super slow at like hiring the first few people that worked at the company. And probably like that was true until like maybe like higher, like 300, 400. And even though like, maybe like the actual interviews wouldn't fully like be measuring for that, like the system would reject people that were not meeting that because they're like, Oh, I don't like this person or I don't see this person thriving. And because like everyone was kind of like aligned. So like you just had all these different people that were, um, almost like checking for, for that vibe, that culture. And if someone didn't like that, it was probably because there was like a misalignment in terms of like culture. So I think like, that's what, um, what happened. Do you think Asana would have benefited from like, uh, having an interview that every, every single, like a specific culture interview that every employee or every candidate had to go through? Theoretically, every employee was, could get trained to, to administer. Um, I'm trying to decide how brutal I want to be here. Um, let me, let me actually answer it this way. Um, I think if you nailed the culture and the culture like is real aligned with helping you accomplish your goals, I think yes. And I actually think in some of the Asana cases, um, it was kind of like a double edged sword and some of the culture elements that were important, I think, um, led to us moving slower or not being as decisive and then just like not being able to make big changes or be more disruptive or have like a crazy roadmap. So I actually think it would have been helpful for Asana because I think like maybe it would have like allowed them to have a better, um, like when they don't like someone, they would have like probably maybe had like, like an interview that's like designed for that. And then maybe that would have allowed them to scale the hiring faster. And then like kind of like, you know, if someone passes the culture interview, then, you know, it's, you can, of course, if you see a massive red flag, you would stop it. But like, um, it would have maybe not made everyone as worried of like, oh shit, like it's up to me to make sure that I like that, that this person is not a bad apple. You know what I mean? Like it almost like it would have like. It interests, it creates, it creates a mechanism that everyone that allows everyone to sleep a little bit better at night because they just know it's running in the background that like anyone coming into the company passed this, this test and therefore they're more likely to be like, I don't have to pay as close attention to like, you know, the things. Because then at some point then you also suddenly just have like this distributed system that's like checking all the time for culture fit and whether they like it or not. And then it's like the likelihood that someone is going to be like reject them as much like likely. And it's just also like more intense too. Like it's just like it takes more toll on you because you're like, oh shit, like you take the responsibility more personal versus like trusting the system. There's also, speaking of second order effects, there's a second order effect to, to having a formal culture interview that's come to mind as you're talking, which is like. So. I always say that getting when I was at Facebook, when I got calibrated as an interviewer for like the product sense interview and the analytical thinking interview. It made me. One, it made me better at, at, at, at evaluating the quality of thinking in those areas because it gave me some kind of rubric and to, to, to use for like what's strong versus weak in ways that I had never seen before, you know, like as a candidate, you get ready for the interviews, but you're just doing your best. And if you pass, you pass. And if you don't, you don't, but you don't have this like well-refined scale in your head until you get trained. And then when you're trained, you start to see the difference between like, you know, points on a scale. That's the one, that's one benefit. And with culture, I'd say the benefit there is, you know, you know, you go from thinking in terms of like good culture fit to bad culture fit to more like weak culture fit to very strong culture fit kind of thing. You know, it's like more of a spectrum I suspect you develop. And then the second thing is it actually made me better at interviewing in the future as a candidate. So when you start to evaluate someone else's thinking in a specific area with a specific rubric, you can't help but internalize like the patterns of, you know, what strong looks like. You try to then demonstrate strength on the job and in what you do after that, you want to, you want to always be doing your best. And so I think in a culture interview sense, if you get calibrated as a culture interviewer with a very, with a spectrum of weak culture fit to strong culture fit, and then there's a very well, well-defined set of dimensions that you're evaluating people on, then when you're done with the interview and you go back to your job, it's not like you can just forget about that. Like you're probably, it's probably, it probably helps reinforce the culture amongst the employees by, by calibrating them to evaluate culture fit with applicants. Yeah. So it seems like almost like it's like an amplification mechanism for the culture within the company. Yeah. It's almost like a virtual cycle, right? And then it's like, because then it's like, I would take it a level deeper. It's not just that, you know, the rubric and that like you need to understand what like a great culture looks like. And then it's almost like it, like you become like the guardian of the, of the like culture, but then like, how can you guard something that you don't care about? And at that point you almost have to convince yourself that this is like the thing. And because then it's like, all of a sudden you've got to choose teams, right? It's like, Hey, like I'm team Anthropic and I'm protecting the company from, so yeah, it's pretty interesting. Right. And I think that's maybe that that's what like someone like Dario would say, like to my point of like, you know, what if you get a mercenary and maybe it's like, Hey, by exposure, right. By exposure to people that are missionaries that really believe in this and I deeply believe that you can sense when someone is genuine or not, like eventually that person will convert. Like, and then I think it's just like, it's just a matter of time when they realize like how important and existential it is for some of the employees that work here. And so maybe it's like almost like, yeah, designed for that too. Right. Totally. There's one more thing I'll say on this, which is. Bro, it's totally a cult. Oh, it's definitely a cult, but, but I think it's such a well-designed, I mean, it's a well-designed cult. So like one of the things I'll add, which I like, which I think is so interesting is like, um, I remember when I got calibrated as an interviewer at, um, at, at Facebook, when I, you know, after, after you run these interviews, I started to feel almost like excited, more excited to be at Facebook after every one of those interviews. Cause like, I just talked to like a pretty high, like super smart person trying to get in the door. Right. Like they're trying to come work here and I'm like the guy on the inside and they're asking me questions about what it's like. And then when we're done, I'm going back and doing my job, but it made me on, on the margin. Like I think about my job satisfaction and kind of like how happy I was to be at the company being higher, um, overall because I was involved in interviews. Um, the interviews made me feel lucky to be there. It made me feel grateful to be there. Um, like I was part of an elite select group of people. Now you don't want to defend that. You don't want to keep it elite. I wanted to keep it good. Yeah. Cause I wanted Facebook on my resume to carry a certain weight, right? Like, I mean, obviously when I came in pretty late where you could argue, I couldn't really tank that if I tried, but, um, but you know, yeah, on the margin, I think it's better to have the brand be, be strong. But the reason I'm bringing that up is cause I compare that to times where I've, I've been in a role and, um, wasn't running interviews. Maybe we weren't, we weren't hiring that much, or there's just like, you know, um, not a lot of opportunities to get trained and they had enough interviewers and, you know, how I felt in those roles. And what I think is interesting is like, and the way Anthropic designed this is regardless of what team you're on or what role you do, there are always interviews happening that you can drive if you get calibrated. And so what they've built, built is they've, they've, um, unt, almost like untangled or detangled the connection between the business case and you're part of the company for hiring and your ability to be an interviewer. Like you could, you could be an interviewer in a part of the company that's not hiring at all, like by you'll just be interviewing people for the culture interview in another part of the company that is growing. And so what that does is it creates this mechanism that ensures on the margin, more, more, better retention, employee retention, better and better satisfaction because you're helping people feel like they're actually, you're reinforcing in their head, I'm lucky to be here. I'm grateful to be here. All these amazing people are trying to get in. I get to be part of the group that Phil, you know, keeps them, keeps the, brings the good ones in and keeps the bad ones out. Um, and on the versus imagine all those people not getting a chance to interview. Right. They, they, so they just had, they just, they just quote unquote just do their job. Um, those people will have, it's just a different level of, of commitment to the company, I think when you, when you become, when you interview candidates. Well done, Dario. I don't know. I don't know if this is intentional, if that was the game that you designed in the beginning, but good stuff. Good stuff. I mean, it is super interesting. I, I don't think every company could do this, but like, I would say, there has to be an enemy and there has to be an existential risk in order for you to be able to do this. Like you need to be able to justify why this matters. Um, or, or you need to have like a very good compelling story and of why this is. Um, but, but you know, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me ask your question back, but why do you, why do you think not every company can do that? So, um, I guess the way to answer that is to just like kind of recap or unpack maybe, or just to like list out the, almost like the conditions that are true and anthropic and where that make this work. Um, and then we can ask ourselves, you know, how many companies do we think that translates to? Or is this literally like an N of one, right? Um, so yeah, very high stakes, you know, problem, either we end up in the term, the terminator scenario, or we end up with like, uh, an age of abundance where diseases are cured and the upside is unlimited, right? So like, it's just like crazy dichotomy. Secondly, high, highly competitive, like lots of very strong competitors who are vying for the same talent, um, as you are, and, and to some degree vying for the same customers, um, as you are. Um, three, uh, like the third ingredient is a founding team that left your biggest competitor to start this company and seven co-founders, right? So like the, the, the founding team of anthropic in a lot of ways is the size of how many other companies are when they are like three years old or four years old, like they, they had that many people on day one, right? Um, I would say, uh, the alignment, like the thing those people were working on together at open AI being about safety and that becoming a core ingredient of what matters the most, like almost like the pillar of how this company thinks about what they're, what's different about them than that main competitor. Right. So if we even just like stop right there and ask ourselves, like, you know, how many companies exist that meet those types of criteria or, you know, and how there's not a lot of places where those exact conditions exist. I'm trying to think if I. conditions exist. I'm trying to think if I can think of any. I wonder like SpaceX maybe like. Yeah, but the people that I've seen leave SpaceX aren't leaving because it's like they disagree with how SpaceX does stuff so they're like we could do it better or something. It's the people I've seen leave SpaceX to start companies are doing it because like they stay on good terms with SpaceX for the most part. They partner with SpaceX. They just kind of like see an opportunity to, you know, start something of their own and they might be able to get to market faster by doing it as their own company than as part of SpaceX or whatever. Or they just don't want Elon to be their boss is in doing it or you know, they have a bunch of reasons. Yeah, I mean, but I can't think of. Yeah, but I guess my question to you is like, but do you actually need all of that to have like a good culture interview like or like a really strong culture? You know, actually an example that comes to mind. I think you listened to the Acquired episode about Sequoia, right? Sequoia Capital. Yeah. Isn't Sequoia's founding story kind of like a little bit like this? Like Don Valentine and like those guys when they left. God, I'm forgetting the names, but like in the 50s wasn't there kind of like. Yeah. Was it? I forget the name. It was Mike Moritz too. Yeah. There's like a few of those guys that left one of the big tech companies. Was it Kleiner's or? I'm forgetting. Man, I feel terrible for the audience. But like, but basically I remember I think that was one where like these guys got together and they left and did their own thing and they basically did it better. You know, they built Sequoia, right? So like, you know, obviously that's the best PC for. I mean, Michael, Michael Ovitz. I mean, Michael Ovitz was another one. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think the Don Valentine people, they're, they're all worked at Fairchild Semiconductors. That's what it was. Yeah. So I think Don Valentine, Doug Leone, and Mike Moritz, all those guys I think worked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of the idea. So, so yeah. And then with Michael Ovitz, those guys left the agency called, was it Tom Thomas something or? Yeah. But same thing. Basically he came with a lot of ideas. They were not listening to him and he was like, okay, screw it. Like I'm just going to do it my own way. Yeah. Actually it went as far as them trying to kill him, like kill, kill his new agency in the first week. And then he made the lawyer they hired untouchable by basically defaming him and all, you know, talking shit about him and all of Hollywood. And like these, these stories are fascinating, but as a result CAA has a crazy, well-defined culture. There's us and there's everyone else. Right. Yeah. Same with Sequoia. I think they were like, you're with us or you're against us. Kind of to a lot of people. So, well, I think, but I think the point is, to me, I think the point is like, I think the founder needs to make it a priority. And then if they make it a priority and they're under, I think, and they also have to be building a problem that's big enough to attract people. Right. Like I think there has to be an ambition mission. Solving a problem. Solving a problem. Yeah. So like, I think those are the two conditions that are really like, I mean, are they like important and you need to be able to tie it to like a mission that's like really important. Right. Like, yeah. Like Asana is like a good example. Like it is like culture was a huge thing and it was a very culture driven company and, and our mission was helping humanity thrive by helping all teams work together effortlessly. And like, that was like, that was like, you know, like humanity will thrive if they're able to be more productive and be able to like not do work about work so that everyone's spending their, their amount of time in the highest leverage form. Right. So like, which I think is a stretch, right? Like, you know, like, like sometimes like, like some, some of the mercenaries that's that would sneak in and would joke about it be like, this is like ridiculous. Right. That we're helping humanity thrive. Right. Like that's like, that's a stretch, but, but like the founders really deeply believe that. Right. So, so I think like there has to be like, you have to be able to frame it into a way of like how you're helping humanity in a grand way. And I think it just needs to be a priority. I think that's a really hard part actually is like, anyone can be good at storytelling, but actually like, I think people say this is important, but the condor would say otherwise, but like, like they actually really need to enforce that. And that's actually a really, really hard part. And that, that I just think most companies probably struggle with. Totally agree. Yeah. I think, I, I, I think if someone's listening to this and they're at a company that they feel has in their head, at least a clear culture or set of values, but you look around sometimes and you kind of ask yourself like, why, how did this person make it? And really, you know, like how did like, or you're, you're, or you're, or you're, you interview a candidate and you're like, yeah, technically speaking, they kind of passed that interview that I just did, but I'm kind of worried about their culture fit. If there's not a dedicated culture interview, how are you going to evaluate that? And as long as you have an interview, it could be maybe the hiring manager interview can be the culture interview or something like, you know, you could count on that. The real question though becomes if every hiring manager is doing their own culture interview, are you getting, are you, are you, are you optimizing for company level culture fit? Or are you, are you optimizing with manager culture fit? Right. And, and I, by the way, I see a lot more of the manager, like especially for big companies, like there's so many people that'd be like, Hey, like, do you know someone here? I don't want to throw any companies under the bus, but I'm like, I do, but big, but if the culture of the company, the culture of the company is totally different dependent on what part of the org you're in. So first figure out what part of the org you're applying for. And then I'd tell you, which because one person is going to give you a totally different impression than the other. And yeah, I think that happens. And I don't know if it's a good thing, but it sounds like Anthropic is well positioned for not that not to be the case. I mean, I'm sure one way for us to know, let's both get jobs in Anthropic and then we could compare our cultures and our different organizations and then we could answer that question. Yeah, no, easy. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think I could pass the Anthropic loop at this point. Their loop is, their loop is super hard. Super hard. Yeah. Yeah. I know I'm joking, but yeah. If I, if I knew, you know, maybe of like someone who is building some sort of guide to understand the process a little bit better. I know a guide. I know a guide. I know a guide. I have a guide for you. Awesome. On that note, is there anything that. There's, there's an app for that. There's a guide for that. Yeah. There's a guide for that. And on that note, is there anything that we should have covered that we didn't cover? Let me just look at my notes. I think, yeah, bringing some kind of thing you disagree with, having something, basically something you disagree with Anthropic about is good. It's good to have that in your pocket for the interview, for sure. They want to see that shadow. Light and shadow. Yeah. I mean, just so people remember, like in case they haven't heard me talk about this before, any behavioral interviews, you want to understand the company's values, and then you want to make sure, imagine like a checklist and you want to make sure that by the time that, by the time your culture interview is done, you've put a check box next to every one of those company values and make sure that as they ask you questions, you drive the conversation towards the stories that allow you to give them the signal that demonstrates you are strongly resonating with those values. Not by stating the values back to them, that would be weird, but by telling stories in your own words that demonstrate your compatibility with those values. So, yep. The side note that I will make here is based on what I know about this interview and some of the failure states that we've seen from some of our customers at Insider Loops, is that this is not really like the typical behavioral interview in the sense of like, you know, usually when people are preparing for a behavioral interview, it's like, hey, have a story bank, right? And like, prepare like that STAR method very carefully. And I think actually, like, if you follow that too religiously, it's going to backfire on you, right? Like, I think, you know, if like, again, it's, they ask a lot of questions to your time, so you need to literally just answer the question they're asking. And like, if there's a story that works for that, great. But if not, like, I mean, of course, there has to be some substance, right? Or like, and you have to sound authentic, right? Like, there's some stories that just don't sound authentic, but like, maybe like show that skill. And so yeah, I think it's, it feels like way less performative, and in a way than others. And also just remember that person that you are talking to may or may not be in product. So if you're getting into like, free and like specifics, PRDs, like, just very like, like, just like, remember like, who the audience is, because like, I think you might lose them, and they might ping you as a bad communicator, because they're not able to follow your story. So I think those are just other kind of things that I just wanted to, to miss. And then the other thing too, is like, usually in behavioral interviews, from my experience, from just doing them, and like, just hearing other people's experiences, they're way more like, you know, they let you just kind of run, run free a little bit. And like, you know, set up the story, tell everything, you know, this could be like a couple of minutes. And I think it's not gonna be like that, right? Like, I think, we actually talked to a couple people that were like, Oh, like, I felt like, bombed out, because they were interrupting me, they're asking follow up questions. And, you know, they're just going to the next question, next question, next question. So like, I was just like, not getting any signal. And the reason I'm bringing that is like, there's some people that like, get that shock, and they're like, and they started getting nervous. I'm like, I'm fucking up. This is going terribly. So like, just like, don't misread the signal, or don't misread the dynamics that are going on. Because just keep going. Because like, that's actually what's expected. Stay focused on the job you need to be doing. Play your game. Yeah, exactly. And so that's just another important thing that I just wanted to mention that's a little bit different from other Yeah, I had one. The last thing I'll share is I had one person, kind of like as an anecdote, share a very, very personal story. And about, you know, again, like, I'm not a health condition. And, and they were like, so surprised when the interviewer just went to the next question. And when they were done telling the story, they're like, I just gave you this, like, this gave you like a, I like a story I've never told in an interview before, right? Like, and then you just like, keep going to the next question. Like, it was it was very kind of like, surprising to them. But that's just what the interviewer is there to do a job. The IT guy or the security guy or gal or whatever. All right, these are our missionaries. They're missionaries. They're doing their job. They're like TSA for the company. You know, it's like, it's kind of like what they're doing. Yeah. Got to take your shoes off. Like, they don't want to hear how you got this water bottle that's empty. Like, you know, like, I'm sure there's a cool story. And maybe that's how you got engaged. But they want to make sure, hey, is your computer on the tray? A six ounce tube of toothpaste is not acceptable here. Three ounces all day. Come on. All day, baby. Sweet. Okay. I think this is, again, interesting to me. And I'm guessing going to be interesting to other people. And anything else that we should cover here that we haven't? No, I think we, I mean, we're going to continue to get smart on this interview. We're going to have new data points. They're going to evolve it. So obviously, like the latest, you know, I don't, this is going to be on the internet forever. So, you know, people, if this changes in a meaningful way, we'll probably do a new video and make sure, like, we talk about it. But until then, I'd say our guides, I guess, shamelessly, I will plug our guides are going to be the best way to kind of stay on top of the latest updates related to this. Agreed. Thank you for listening, everyone. See you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.