Behind the Craft

Inside Anthropic: How Claude Actually Gets Built | Alex Albert

May 17, 2026·35 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Alex is a research PM at Anthropic building the next Claude model. He gave me a rare inside look at how the research team operates — including how they turn user feedback into model training, how they decide which capabilities to prioritize, and how they improve Claude’s personality. If you’re wondering how frontier model development actually works, then this interview is a must watch.Alex and I talked about:(00:00) How Anthropic treats each new model as a product(04:58) Building adaptive thinking into Claude(07:07) Why Claude is starting to dream(11:15) "If it's not a one-way door, then it's essentially free"(15:40) How Alex uses Claude Cowork to pressure test his docs(17:05) Inside Anthropic's eval process for new models(21:02) How Anthropic trains Claude's character(32:39) The consciousness question Anthropic is quietly working onThanks to our sponsors:Oceans: Hire AI-native EAs http://oceanstalent.com/peterWispr Flow: Don't type, just speak https://ref.wisprflow.ai/peteryangGet the takeaways: https://creatoreconomy.so/p/inside-how-anthropic-is-building-the-next-claudeWhere to find Alex:X: https://x.com/alexalbert__Website: alexalbert.me📌 Subscribe to this channel — more interviews coming soon!

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