Anthropic's Daniela Amodei: Vacation-Test Your Cofounder

Anthropic was launched in 2021 by Daniela Amodei and her brother, CEO Dario Amodei, along with five other cofounders. Before that, the core group had worked at OpenAI, and they left for various reasons, including differing views on company vision. Amodei said she got "extremely lucky" with her fellow founders, some of whom had been in her orbit for 15 years, and most had already reported to her or her brother at OpenAI. That shared history gave them an established way to give each other feedback and a sense of who they were as people.

Her vacation advice is part of a broader conversation about how founders pick partners. Paul Graham of Y Combinator wrote in a 2009 essay that character and commitment matter more than ability, especially in failed startups. Andy Dunn, cofounder and former CEO of Bonobos, laid out five tests, including a stress test and a time test. Jeff Rosenthal and Patrick Maloney of CIV exchanged written notes like pen pals to align their vision before starting.

The test Amodei describes is simple, but it hinges on how honestly founders read the result. A good trip may signal compatibility, but it does not guarantee alignment on mission or decision-making at scale, the other piece she stresses. For entrepreneurs, the stakes are high: picking the wrong partner can end badly, as Amodei suggests with her unicorn-and-platypus image.