You can really learn a lot about a person just from going on a vacation with them. At least that’s what Daniela Amodei, the cofounder and president of Anthropic, seems to think.
Vacations tend to remove the polished version of someone in platonic, romantic, and even professional relationships. Travel creates an environment of stress that, through forced proximity, shows you exactly how well you can get along with someone in a very short amount of time. That’s exactly why Amodei employs her vacation test before starting a business relationship with anyone.
“Instead of starting a company together, go on vacation together,” Amodei said during a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “Share a room with them. Be like, ‘How did that go?’ And if you’re like, ‘Man, all I wanna do is spend more time with you,’ great.”
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She continued, “If you’re like, ‘Really, I’m gonna need a vacation to recover from my vacation,’ it might be the wrong choice.” Amodei, who runs Antrhopic with her brother, CEO Dario Amodei, and five other co-founders, explained that she looks for strong interpersonal relationships. The Anthropic team of businesspeople thrived on an established framework for giving each other feedback, and, importantly, they knew “who we were as people.”
“If you locked yourself and your co-founder in another room, and you wrote down or drew a picture of what it is you’re trying to build, you’re not gonna walk out and one has drawn a unicorn and the other has drawn a platypus,” she added “That’s the type of situation where you think you’re doing the same thing, but I think it just doesn’t end well.”
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There’s just something interesting about vacationing with people. Whether you’re going on a girls’ trip or a couple’s getaway, it really does show sides of a person you may not have seen in your daily life. Maybe it’s because of the drastic change of scenery or the shenanigans that come with going away, but vacation is often used as the ultimate test for any and all relationships.
“Traveling with someone might reveal things that you simply don’t like and never knew before: fear of new cultural experiences and a general sense of closed-mindedness; excessive rigidity and an inability to compromise or deviate from routines; frugality, grouchiness, clinginess, the list goes on,” explained psychology expert Jaime Kutz.
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She continued, “Especially for those of us who spend a lot of time by ourselves, suddenly being with someone 24-7 can be jarring, no matter how much we cherish that person.”
Travel is known to bring people together, as research suggests it can create positive experiences and loving memories that can strengthen relationships. But at the same time, it can also be the catalyst for relationships to break apart completely.
Compatibility is put to the test during travel. There’s unpredictability, close quarters, different ideas of what might be fun, compromise, and even communication requirements. Maybe that’s why Amodei created the vacation test in the first place. It’s a surefire way to weed out anyone who might not be a fit for her particular working style.
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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.
