Isabelle Bousquette’s Post

There's nothing like the magic of a front page story. In today's print edition of The Wall Street Journal, I'm reporting that (while there's clearly a lot going on inside $183 billion AI giant Anthropic), arguably the most important one is the staff’s obsession with a local albino alligator. It started with a coincidence of naming: while Claude is perhaps most well known as the popular chatbot from Anthropic, to San Francisco locals, it's also the beloved albino alligator living at the California Academy of Sciences. It's important to note that Claude is not Claude’s namesake (and by that I mean the AI tool was named after AI researcher Claude Shannon rather than the alligator), but the connection has spurred a bizarre obsession with Alligator Claude inside Anthropic. Its San Francisco headquarters is crawling with stuffed albino alligators. You’ll find them on workdesks, at reception and inside a vending machine. A bespoke albino alligator emoji is one of the most popular reactions on the company Slack channel, usually an indicator of positive vibes. And a 24/7 livestream of the alligator plays on screens around the office, including at every elevator bank. Since the elevators can be slow, staff spend a decent amount of time absorbed in the daily rhythms of Claude, Anthropic's head of education Margaret Vo told me. Daniela Amodei has also said her 4-year-old son mistakenly thinks her job is taking care of the alligator. Part of why I love the Wall Street Journal is that, yes, it breaks the biggest, most important news stories of the day, but it will also put the funniest and most bizarre and also the most relatable human stories on Page 1. Thanks so much to Russell Adams for wanting to tell this story. (And shoutout to Joe Hasson for being the biggest Claude fan I know.) You can read the story online here: https://lnkd.in/eiUGugA2 Or pick up a copy of today's print edition!