> One applicant — who spoke to Axios on the condition of anonymity for fear of hurting future job opportunities — recalled being asked how they would feel if the company someday abandoned its AI ambitions for safety reasons, and that decision sent the stock to zero.<p>Is that a scoop? I thought that was a well known thing with Anthropic interview process. They were very transparent about it beforehand from what I remember.<p>On HN I’ve said things very critical of the company but that’s really not one of them, overall they had a pretty good (but intense and time consuming) interview process. I don’t understand the value of that article
It would be a decent interview question if such a large portion of compensation did not come from equity.<p>Otherwise it's basically the same as asking how someone would feel if all the sudden they lost 50% or more of their wealth. No one feels okay about that, except maybe the delusional few.
I don't agree with some things Anthropic does but that is a cool thing.
Isn't the obvious response that they should offer a comparable comp package without any sort of stock aspect?
I wasn't aware this was known information, but had I not, I would have assumed this was some 4D PR manoeuvre.
"anonymity, for fear of hurting future job opportunities"<p>Ah yes, this screams morality. We're in good hands, folks!
"Damn kids today, working for <i>their</i> money, not mine!" Since Dario believes in the mission, he should give away all his stock and work for a regular employee salary
I don't understand the problem with this question. I could barely discern the question in the article.
Or it could be posturing. Or it could be compensation negotiation.<p>How does the <i>actual</i> Anthropic internal culture compare to that of OpenAI?
The worst is that I don't believe a single second that Amodei and his crew are not greed motivated in the end. Otherwise his company would be a lot different, more open, more open source, more available to help good cause without benefit.<p>What I see is more the god syndrome of persons that have are in power and have an edge. He can make the conditions so it is important for him to appear as a "divine leader", that is capable to "inspire others" with whatever is the right thing that it decides.
I'm quite sure that he will not tolerate debate still.<p>But obviously he will not see himself like that, but will be persuaded that he is a world changer and saving the world.
I hate these types of questions because they're not just selecting for people dedicated to the mission, they're also selecting for people who are convincing liars
What’s the alternative? Selecting people without caring at all about their character?
I agree with the parent commenter – it's too on the nose.<p>If you were concerned about someone's character then you need to ask questions which really help you to understand who the person is – not questions which are easy to game by lying.<p>I'd argue asking something like someone's opinion on veganism is a better question because it might help you understand how the person thinks about the types of harms Anthropic are concerned about without being such an easy thing to lie about.<p>Obviously they could say "yeah, I think veganism is good", but someone who actually inhabited that view or was just conflicted about balancing meat consumption and the suffering of animals would probably answer with a lot more nuance that helps you understand how that person thinks about similar kinds of ethical concerns.
Isn't mostly any question not directly verifiable subject to that?
At least the more questions you ask a liar to pin them down the easier it is to eventually notice them tripping up.
This is such a good example of a straight forward question that achieves the exact opposite of its purpose. What do we want? Highly ethical people that are mission focused and willing to give up on economic upside for the mission. What are we going to get? Sociopaths who are perfectly happy lying to your face about their intentions, or sycophants who are going to tell you what you want to hear.<p>Do you know who has the <i>best</i> answer to a moral quandry they've had to navigate during their career? Liars! That's a really difficult question to answer if you're honest, it's a really easy question to answer if you're dishonest.<p>If you <i>really</i> want to pursue this strategy rather than setting up bullshit interview questions you could do something much more straight forward. Agree some standard of living that's acceptable for your employees - let's say 250k in the bay area. Give them that as cash comp, and everything else goes into a "fund" which gets paid out when specific milestones are achieved, as judged by some panel. Cure cancer? You all get 10% of your deferred comp.<p>If you want your employees to be prioritizing things other than stock price you can literally just encode that into your compensation strategy if you like!<p>Obviously no one would do that, because they don't <i>actually</i> want to give up the comp.
"Will you lie to get this job?"<p>Sounds like theyre actively hiring people to train the worst kind of AI
The candidates should read up on effective altruism before applying to this company.<p>If you don’t know what that is, then you won’t understand why Anthropic are asking those sort of questions.
This is good advice. And if you don’t want to spend too much time reading about EA, imagine for yourself the inner dialogue of someone struggling with the tension between wanting to get really, really rich at any cost, and also really, really wanting other people to cherish them as a heroic-level Good Person, and also (this part is crucial) not have to sully their hands doing any actual hands-on good directly.<p>The ideal runs close to the output of Bill Gates’ PR machine.
Why are you so anti-anthropic? Hundreds of posts on hacker news decrying anthropic.
Admit it HN, you have sour grapes for not having a job at Anthropic/OpenAI.