Anthropic CEO has only one direct subordinate, overturning the rules of the tech industry.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has only one direct subordinate, delegating all daily management authority to his sister Daniela to preserve time for strategic thinking.
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Table of Contents

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• Counter-trend Management: CEO only has 1 direct report
• Strategic Freeze: Dario cuts daily management
• Cultural Investment: Vision Quest to prevent dilution
• Rare Phenomenon: All 7 founders remain
• Time Collapse: Harvard professor explains narrow management scope

Bloomberg interviewed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, revealing an interesting fact: as the CEO of a company valued near a 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.

The current mainstream trend in tech is "flattening," where CEOs manage more and more people. Jensen Huang manages 60 people without one-on-one meetings, based on the logic that "a CEO directly managing 60 people can eliminate 7 layers of management." Sam Altman manages about 6.

Dario only manages 1, which is completely opposite.

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

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

Counter-trend Management: CEO only has 1 direct report

His words are: "If you have a bunch of things to handle tomorrow, it’s very hard to focus on the overall strategy."

He spends about half his time on cultural development. Specifically, he holds a bi-weekly all-hands called "Dario Vision Quest," where he writes a lengthy 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 come from big tech firms. If they are not proactively immersed in Anthropic’s culture, they will default to replicating their previous company’s practices, diluting the company culture.

The rest of his time is spent on research directions, strategy, and writing long public articles. He dedicates much time to contemplating what AI means for human civilization, presenting these ideas through extensive public writings.

This isn’t random allocation but based on the complementary backgrounds of the two. Dario is purely research-oriented (former VP of research at OpenAI); Daniela comes from operations, having worked at Stripe early on, led safety and policy teams at OpenAI, and is more skilled in "people" management. Each does what they are best at.

Another detail: All seven co-founders of Anthropic remain with the company to this day.

Strategic Freeze: Dario cuts daily management

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

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

If most problems are known and routine, the CEO can manage many people because subordinates can handle themselves. Nvidia’s division heads know what to do, so Huang managing 60 people works.

But if the company faces constantly new, high-risk, answerless problems, the CEO needs a narrower scope of management, leaving more time for critical judgment. Anthropic exemplifies this: questions about safety boundaries, whether to collaborate with the military, next-generation model strategies—all are new and complex.

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

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

Cultural Investment: Vision Quest to prevent dilution

Full translation:

Bloomberg · June 10, 2026

· 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 executive team reports to Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, who handles daily operations and is responsible to the board, allowing Dario to focus on strategic thinking and research directions.

· Dario spends a lot of time discussing Anthropic’s culture with employees. During rapid growth, maintaining company culture is his and Daniela’s top priority.

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

Rare Phenomenon: All 7 founders remain

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

Anthropic is experimenting with a different leadership model: the CEO dedicates almost all his time to strategic thinking, organizational culture, research input, rather than managing senior leaders. 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.

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

For Dario, a first-time founder and Princeton Ph.D. in biophysics, early career research in labs often meant spending much time contemplating AI and its implications for humanity. He explores these themes through company-wide "Vision Quests" (employee gatherings for broad reflection) and long-form public articles.

"In many ways, this is a focused and holistic approach. If you have a lot of things to handle tomorrow, it’s hard to focus on the overall strategy," he said. "Separating these two things often makes a lot of sense, so both can be done well."

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

Time Collapse: Harvard professor explains narrow management scope

Daniela has more extensive experience in HR management in tech startups, having been an early Stripe employee and leading safety and policy teams at OpenAI.

In its latest funding round, Anthropic’s valuation approached $1 trillion, and it is 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 closely with all seven co-founders, with the Amodei siblings viewing the retention of all founders as a symbol of cultural cohesion.

Dario estimates he spends "about half" of his time discussing "Anthropic’s culture and how it operates," and says maintaining company culture may be his and Daniela’s "top priority."

"When you grow so fast, you bring in a large number of people from big tech. If you don’t tell them how Anthropic operates, they will naturally replicate what they know—what they did at their previous companies," 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 organizational work. She explains that if a company is viewed as a problem-solving machine, frontline employees handle routine issues, and more complex or exceptional problems move upward.

This means that when other leaders are experienced experts capable of handling their own issues, the CEO can have a broader span of control; but when the organization faces continuous new, high-risk decisions requiring more top-level judgment (like at Anthropic), a narrower scope is necessary.

In any case, organizational structure must be carefully considered. "A manager’s time is the most scarce resource," Sadun says. Ideally, company architecture is designed to protect this scarce resource.