Why Anthropic Thinks AI Should Have Its Own Computer — Felix Rieseberg of Claude Cowork/Code

Description

From building Electron and helping ship the Slack desktop app to now shaping Claude Cowork at Anthropic, Felix Rieseberg has spent years working at the interface layer. In this episode, Felix joins us to unpack how Claude Cowork emerged from Anthropic’s prototype-first culture, why execution has suddenly become cheap enough that teams can “just build all the candidates,” and why the real frontier in AI products is no longer better chat, but trusted task execution. He also shares why Anthropic is betting on local-first agent workflows, why skills may matter more than most people realize, and how the hardest questions ahead are about autonomy, safety, portability, and the changing shape of knowledge work itself. We discuss: • Felix’s path: Slack desktop app, Electron, Windows 95 in JavaScript, and now building Claude Cowork at Anthropic • What Claude Cowork actually is: a more user-friendly, VM-based version of Claude Code designed to bring agentic workflows to non-terminal-native users • Anthropic’s prototype-first culture: why Cowork was built in 10 days using many pre-existing internal pieces, and how internal prototypes shaped the final product • The local machine debate: why Felix thinks Silicon Valley is undervaluing the local computer, and why putting Claude “where you work” is often more powerful • Why Claude gets its own computer: the VM as both a safety boundary and a capability unlock, letting Claude install tools, run scripts, and work more independently without constant approval • How Cowork differs from Claude Code: coding evals vs. knowledge-work evals, different system-prompt tradeoffs, longer planning horizons, and heavier use of planning and clarification tools • Skills vs. MCPs: why Felix is increasingly interested in file-based, text-native interfaces that tell the model what to do, rather than forcing everything through rigid tool schemas • Real use cases already happening today: uploading videos, organizing files, handling taxes, managing calendars, debugging internal crashes, analyzing finances, and automating repetitive browser workflows • Why AI products should work with your existing stack: Anthropic’s bias toward integrating with Chrome, Office, and existing workflows instead of rebuilding every app from scratch • Computer use one year later: how much better it has gotten, why vision plus browser context is such a superpower, and why letting Claude see the thing it is working on changes everything • The future of junior work: Felix’s concerns about entry-level roles, labor-market disruption, and whether AI can compress early-career learning into denser simulated experience • Why Waterloo grads stand out: internships, shipping experience, and learning how real teams build products versus purely theoretical academic preparation • The agentic future of the desktop: what it means for Claude to have its own computer, whether AI should act on your machine or a remote one, and how intimacy with personal data changes the product design space • Anthropic’s Labs mentality: wild internal experiments, half-broken future-looking prototypes, and the broader effort to move users from asking questions to delegating increasingly long and valuable tasks Substack Article w/Show Notes: https://www.latent.space/p/felix-anthropic — Felix Rieseberg • X: https://x.com/felixrieseberg • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixrieseberg Anthropic • http://anthropic.com Timestamps 00:00 Cheap execution and building all the candidates 00:44 Intro in the new Kernel studio 02:47 What Claude Cowork is 04:18 Why user-friendly can be more powerful 05:33 How Anthropic built Cowork 07:09 Prototype-first product development 08:00 Why local computers still matter 09:20 Skills, primitives, and platform leverage 12:13 Cowork’s architecture: VM + Chrome + system prompt 15:38 Felix’s own bug-fixing Cowork workflows 17:38 Local-first agents 20:16 Evals, planning, and knowledge-work optimization 23:14 What Anthropic means by evals 24:21 Scaffolding, tools, and why skills matter 27:44 Demo: YouTube uploads and self-generated skills 31:03 Calendar automation and cleaning your desktop 34:47 Browser context and why DOM access matters 37:47 Skills portability and plugins 44:36 Which AI categories survive? 46:19 Junior jobs, simulated work, and labor disruption 52:00 Gradual takeoff vs big-bang takeoff 53:42 Finance, taxes, and enterprise verticals 56:24 Vision and the improvement in computer use 57:31 Why Claude writes its own scripts 58:06 Should Claude have its own computer? 1:01:26 Windows 95 in JavaScript 1:03:19 VM tradeoffs and sandbox design 1:07:23 Approval fatigue and safe delegation 1:11:18 The future of Cowork 1:12:27 What comes next for agentic knowledge work 1:15:13 Electron, Chromium, and desktop software lessons 1:22:16 Multiplayer agents and coworker-to-coworker workflows 1:26:05 Anthropic Labs and closing thoughts