Anthropic Co-founder Daniela Amodei: Choosing co-founders first to travel together; the mode of coexistence is the best touchstone.

Deep Tide TechFlow News, May 12 — According to Fortune, Daniela Amodei, co-founder and President of Anthropic, shared her insights on choosing co-founders during a speech at Stanford Graduate School of Business. She recommends entrepreneurs travel with potential partners before formalizing the partnership to test compatibility through real interactions — if the trip ends and there’s still a strong desire to continue, that person is an ideal candidate; if instead you need to “recover from the holiday,” then reconsider carefully. Amodei stated that most of Anthropic’s seven co-founders have worked together for up to 15 years, all previously collaborated at OpenAI and established mature feedback mechanisms, and share a high degree of alignment on the company’s vision — this is the core foundation of the team’s success.

Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham also pointed out that in cases of startup failure, founders often overlook the character and commitment of co-founders rather than their abilities; Bonobos co-founder Andy Dunn proposed five specific evaluation methods, including stress testing, time testing, and role division; CIV co-founder Jeff Rosenthal suggested that both parties describe their company vision in writing, and ensure alignment of direction and expectations through “pen-pal style” communication.