Scoop: How A Board Departure And Product Launch Sparked An Anthropic And Figma Feud
Sources tell Upstarts what CEO Dylan Field privately said about Claude Design's launch, why Anthropic didn't expect a spat, and why startups should tread carefully with AI labs.
At an exclusive AI-focused event on Monday afternoon, Figma board director Andrew Reed asked CEO Dylan Field to talk about his relationship with AI lab Anthropic.
It was a loaded question. Just three days prior, Anthropic had announced Claude Design, a product that seemed to compete with Figma’s software. That move came only three days after Mike Krieger, co-lead of the same Labs team that developed it, had formally resigned from Figma’s board.
Towards Krieger, known for his role as co-founder of Instagram and until recently Anthropic’s chief product officer, Field was polite. “Mike is a great guy, and he was awesome on the board,” Field said, as confirmed by two sources who were in the room.
For Anthropic itself, Field chose more loaded words:
“They were not consistently candid in their communications,” he said.
This exclusive story is for premium Upstarts subscribers. Join them in our first birthday sale for 25% off a one year subscription for a limited time.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Upstarts Media to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.