Daniela Amodei: How Vacations Improve Business Partnerships

Daniela Amodei, Co-founder and President of Anthropic, suggests that startup co-founders who are uncertain if they can work together, should explore ways to test their relationship productively.

Talking to students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business on 7 May, Daniela offered advice on working with a co-founder. She added that relationship dynamics “matter a lot more than you think”.

Discussing her brother Dario Amodei, the other co-founder of Anthropic, she said both of them had been “fighting and getting over it for over forty years. He's my brother, and I used to steal his toys”.

One of Daniela’s key pieces of advice for finding a good cofounder was telling executives that instead of founding a company immediately, they should “go on vacation together” first.

“Share a room with them. Be like, ‘How did that go?’ And if you’re like, ‘Man, all I wanna do is spend more time with you,’ great. If you’re like, ‘Really, I’m gonna need a vacation to recover from my vacation,’ it might be the wrong choice,” Daniela said.

She added that she got “extremely lucky” with finding her fellow founders at Anthropic and that the biggest thing she looks for in a colleague is their interpersonal skills. 

Daniela also pointed out that relationships depend less on credentials and more on trust, alignment and the ability to communicate effectively when navigating challenges.

The importance of clarity and strategy alignment

Daniela furthered her point on the benefits of a personal connection with other colleagues, saying that executives are better off getting to know one another for an extended period of time before diving into ambitious business ventures.

Several of Anthropic’s co-founders, she added, had known each other for a long time before the company’s inception.

“There was this kind of long history,” Daniela said, describing relationships that had been built after several years of friendship, academia and professional working environments.

She also added that one of the key reasons as to why startups and businesses don’t succeed is down to a lack of clarity over the overall project and that co-founders must share the initial company vision.

“Make sure you have a very strong sense of what it is you’re trying to do, and that picture is the same,” Daniela added.

She stressed that if these ideas aren’t made concrete early on, it could result in co-founders having an independent idea of how the company should operate and subsequently lead to conflict at a later stage.

Five ways to test a business partnership

Several high-ranking tech executives share Daniela’s view on exercising caution when choosing business confidants.

Paul Graham, co-founder of Silicon Valley startup Y Combinator, has warned entrepreneurs to be careful who they pick as a cofounder and that, like Daniela, he agrees that personal skills and character are paramount to the success of a working partnership.

“What people wished they’d paid more attention to when choosing co-founders was character and commitment, not ability. This was particularly true with startups that failed,” Graham said in a 2009 essay. “The lesson: don’t pick co-founders who will flake.”

Similarly, Andy Dunn, Bonobos co-founder and former CEO, outlined five tests executives should complete with a potential partner before starting a company:

• The stress test – A way for colleagues to analyse their working relationship under pressure
• The test of time – Getting to know one another on a deeper, more personal level
• The role test – Preemptive discussions on company positions and responsibilities
• The “when things go south” test – Discussing potential plans for departure when things aren’t working out and other difficult conversations
• The difference test – A way to focus alignments and values but also to outline every co-founder's individual skill sets

Mirroring Daniela’s belief that a social bond is instrumental within an effective working relationship, Andy stated in a 2024 article he wrote for Fortune: “You need to spend enough time with each other socially, getting to know each other’s friends and loved ones, and treating it like a marriage.

“A great co-founder relationship is a beautiful thing. But if you cannot, it can be good to be a solo founder too! Just go hire a great team, and perhaps a co-founder will emerge from the ranks.”