Original Title: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Is a Manager to Only One Direct Report
Original Source: Jo Constantz, Shirin Ghaffary, Bloomberg

Original Compilation: Xiao Hu, AI Analyst

Bloomberg interviewed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and uncovered an interesting fact: as the CEO of a company valued at nearly one trillion dollars, he has only one direct subordinate.

That is his chief of staff, Avital Balwit. All other executives (CFO, CCO, etc.) report not to him but to his sister, President Daniela Amodei. Daniela handles daily operations and is responsible to the board.

Why is this unusual?

The current mainstream trend in the tech industry is "flattening," where CEOs manage more and more people directly. Jensen Huang manages about 60 people without doing any one-on-one meetings, based on the logic that "a CEO directly managing 60 people can cut out 7 layers of management." Sam Altman manages around six.

Dario only manages one, which is completely opposite.

Why does he do this?

Dario’s background is as an academic researcher (Ph.D. in biophysics from Princeton, previously conducted research at Google and OpenAI), not a professional manager.

He believes the CEO’s greatest value lies in "zooming out": strategic direction, research judgment, organizational culture, and contemplating AI’s impact on human civilization. These tasks require large blocks of uninterrupted time. Daily management ("zooming in") fragments time and prevents thinking about big issues. So he separates these two things completely, focusing only on the former, while leaving the latter entirely to Daniela.

His words are: "If tomorrow there are a bunch of things waiting to be handled, it’s very hard to focus on the big picture."

Where he spends his time

About half of his time is spent on cultural development. Specifically, he holds a bi-weekly all-hands meeting called "Dario Vision Quest," where he writes a long memo and then spends an hour discussing it.

His biggest concern is: as the company rapidly grew from a few hundred to 2,500 people, many new employees coming from large tech firms, if they are not proactively instilled with Anthropic’s culture, they will default to copying the practices of their previous companies, diluting the company culture.

The rest of his time is spent on research directions, strategy, and writing long public articles. He spends a lot of time contemplating what AI means for human civilization and communicates these ideas through lengthy public essays.

The logic behind the sibling division of labor

This is not a random arrangement but based on the complementary backgrounds of the two. Dario is purely research-oriented, having been VP of Research at OpenAI; Daniela has a background in operations, having been an early employee at Stripe and led safety and policy teams at OpenAI. Each does what they are best at.

Another detail: all seven co-founders of Anthropic are still with the company.

In tech startups, it’s common for co-founders to leave gradually, so having all seven remain is quite rare. The Amodei siblings see this as a testament to the company’s cultural cohesion.

Harvard professor’s explanation: what kind of management style a company needs depends on its nature

Harvard Business School professor Raffaella Sadun offers a framework. She compares a company to a problem-solving machine: frontline employees handle routine issues, while more difficult or exceptional problems move upward.

If most issues faced by the company are known and routine, the CEO can manage many people because subordinates can handle their tasks independently. Leaders of different divisions at Nvidia know what to do, so Huang managing 60 people still works.

But if the company constantly faces new, high-risk problems without ready answers, the CEO needs a narrower management scope, leaving more time for critical judgments. Anthropic exemplifies this: questions like where the safety boundaries are, whether to collaborate with the military, or which next-generation model technology route to pursue are all new and complex.

Her conclusion is: "A manager’s time is the most scarce resource."

The essence of organizational structure is to protect this scarce resource.

Full translation:

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Has Only One Direct Subordinate

Bloomberg · June 10, 2026

Key Highlights

· Anthropic PBC CEO Dario Amodei has only one direct subordinate, his chief of staff Avital Balwit, which is extremely rare in the tech industry.

· The company’s executive team reports to President Daniela Amodei, who handles daily operations and reports to the board, allowing Dario to focus on strategic thinking and research directions.

· Dario spends a significant amount of time discussing Anthropic’s culture with employees. Maintaining company culture is his and Daniela’s top priority amid rapid growth.

Despite Dario Amodei’s enormous influence at Anthropic PBC, this co-founder and CEO has only one direct report.

This is uncommon in the tech industry. Many current tech leaders are reducing management layers and expanding their span of control. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has about six direct reports, while Nvidia’s Jensen Huang reports to 60 people directly.

Anthropic is experimenting with a different leadership model: the CEO dedicates almost all his time to strategic thinking, organizational culture, research input, and strategy, rather than managing senior leadership. The executive team reports instead to Daniela Amodei, who manages most daily operations and reports to the board. Dario’s only direct report is his chief of staff, Avital Balwit.

"That’s incredibly freeing," Dario said in an interview with Emily Chang on Bloomberg’s "The Circuit." "It makes it much easier for me to do everything I’m supposed to do."

For Dario, a first-time founder with a Ph.D. in biophysics from Princeton, his early career in labs meant he spent a lot of time contemplating AI and its implications for humanity. He does this through company-wide "Vision Quests" (employee gatherings where he reflects on broad topics) and long-form public articles.

"From many perspectives, this is a focus and a big-picture issue. If you have a lot of things to handle tomorrow, it’s hard to focus on the overall strategy," he said. "So separating these two things often makes sense, so both can be done well."

Before co-founding Anthropic, Dario was VP of Research at OpenAI. He left due to disagreements with the leadership there and co-founded Anthropic in 2021. Prior to that, he was a senior research scientist at Google.

Daniela has more experience in HR management in tech startups. She was an early employee at Stripe and led safety and policy teams at OpenAI.

Anthropic’s latest funding round valued the company close to one trillion dollars, and it is currently racing to go public before OpenAI.

The company hired experienced tech executives in 2024, including CFO Krishna Rao, and in 2025, Chief Business Officer Paul Smith, to support rapid expansion. They work with all seven co-founders, and the Amodei siblings see the retention of all founders as a symbol of the company’s cultural cohesion.

Dario estimates that "about half" of his time is spent discussing "Anthropic’s culture and how it operates," and he says maintaining the company culture is likely their "top priority."

"When you grow so fast, you recruit a large number of people from big tech companies. If you don’t tell them how Anthropic operates, they will naturally replicate what they know best—how their previous companies worked," he said.

Harvard Business School economist and management professor Raffaella Sadun believes that how many direct reports a CEO manages, beyond personal preference or leadership style, reflects the nature of the organization. She says if you imagine a company as a problem-solving machine, frontline employees handle routine issues, while more complex or exceptional problems move upward.

This means that when other leaders in the organization are experienced experts capable of handling their responsibilities independently, the CEO can have a broader span of control; but when the company faces continuous new, high-risk problems requiring more top-level judgment (like at Anthropic), a narrower span of control may be necessary.

In any case, organizational structure must be carefully considered. "A manager’s time is the most scarce resource," Sadun states. Ideally, the company’s architecture is designed to protect this scarce resource. https://t.me/theblockbeats https://t.me/BlockBeats_App https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia