Anthropic’s first technical PM on token maxing, the jagged edge, and living in the future | Dianne Penn
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Lenny Rachitsky
Author
Lenny Rachitsky
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Terms in this piece · Glossary
MCP — The Model Context Protocol — an open standard that lets any AI assistant plug into any tool or data source without custom integration code.
AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.
Why it matters
First-hand account of how the AI agentAn AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.Full definition → tooling most practitioners depend on was actually shaped.
Key quotes
“In 2023 when I started, nobody said anthropic and clod and coding in the same sentence.”
Dianne Penn
“You have to sweat the tokens as much as you sweat the pixels.”
Dianne Penn
“The evals, we actually have a saying on the team of evals are the new PRDs.”
Dianne Penn
“Because you can't improve what you can't measure.”
Dianne Penn
“no matter how far you go there's always another level”
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