BlockBeats News, May 12th—During a speech at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Daniela Amodei, Co-Founder and President of Anthropic, said that the most important thing for entrepreneurs to do before formally founding a company is not to immediately write a business plan but to "travel together first."

She said: "Instead of starting a business together, it's better to go on a trip first. You can even stay in the same room to see how it feels in the end."

Daniela Amodei believes that if after the trip you feel like "you still want to spend more time with this person," then it indicates that both parties may be suitable for long-term collaboration. However, if you feel like "you need another vacation to recover from the vacation," then the other person is most likely not a suitable co-founder.

She revealed that the high stability of the Anthropic founding team is largely due to the members having known each other for many years. Most of the founders, including her brother and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, had previously worked together at OpenAI and had established mature feedback and communication mechanisms.

Daniela also emphasized that the most important thing between co-founders is "shared vision." She described that if two founders were locked in the same room and asked to draw the future of the company, "one cannot draw a unicorn while the other draws a platypus."

Paul Graham has long warned entrepreneurs that when choosing co-founders, "character and long-term commitment" are more important than ability. Y Combinator, Bonobos, and many Silicon Valley investors also generally recommend that before starting a business, cooperation relationships should be validated through intense communication, role division, long-term interaction, and even "marriage-style testing."