
Anthropic Co-founder: Building Claude Code, Lessons From GPT-3 & LLM System Design
From Lightcone Podcast by Y Combinator
August 21, 2025 · 36 min
About this episode
Tom Brown discusses his journey from YC founder to AI researcher and shares insights on scaling laws and advice for young engineers.
Tom Brown co-founded Anthropic after helping build GPT-3 at OpenAI. A self-taught engineer, he went from getting a B-minus in linear algebra to becoming one of the key people behind AI's scaling breakthroughs. And his work is paying off. Today, Anthropic's Claude is the go-to choice for developers, and his team is overseeing what he calls "humanity's largest infrastructure buildout ever." On this episode of The Lightcone, he discusses his unconventional path from YC founder to AI researcher, the discovery of scaling laws that changed everything, and his advice for young engineers entering AI today.
People in this episode
Host: Y Combinator
Guest: Tom Brown
Topics covered
- AI research
- scaling laws
- Claude
- GPT-3
- engineering advice
- technology infrastructure
Keywords
- Tom Brown
- Anthropic
- Claude
- GPT-3
- AI engineering
- scaling breakthroughs
- technology
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Anthropic, OpenAI
Products: Claude
Books & works: The Lightcone
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