Thariq Shihipar, a member of Anthropic's Claude Code team (and SPC alum), joins South Park Commons Partner Evan Tana to discuss what it takes to build at the frontier of AI, where the models, tools, and best practices are constantly evolving.

Thariq traces his journey from a gaming startup to Anthropic after a chance text about Claude Code, shares why his team stopped using Plan Mode, explains concepts like capability overhang, harness engineering, and the underrated art of writing evals, and discusses why RAG is becoming an anti-pattern. He also breaks down how founders should think about building when the capabilities of AI systems are changing faster than anyone can predict.

Thariq Shihipar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thariqshihipar/
Evan Tana: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evantana/
South Park Commons: https://www.linkedin.com/company/southparkcommons/

Apply to SPC: https://www.southparkcommons.com/apply

Chapters:

(00:00:00) - From Startup Founder to Anthropic

(00:03:33) - Building Better AI With Claude Code

(00:07:21) - The Capability Overhang

(00:12:17) - How Anthropic Builds AI Products

(00:17:51) - Prompting Claude More Effectively

(00:30:58) - How AI Is Changing Product Teams

(00:41:11) - Advice for AI Founders