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

That is his Chief of Staff, Avital Balwit. All other executives of the company (CFO, CCO, etc.) do not report to him but rather to his sister, President Daniela Amodei. Daniela is in charge of day-to-day operations and reports to the board.

Why the Unconventionality

The current mainstream trend in the tech industry is "flattening," where CEOs manage an increasing number of people directly. Huang Renxun oversees 60 people, without conducting any one-on-one meetings, under the logic that "a CEO managing 60 people can eliminate 7 layers of management." Sam Altman manages around 6.

Dario manages only 1, completely going against this trend.

Why He Does This

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

He believes the CEO's greatest value lies in activities that require a "zoom out" perspective: strategic direction, research judgment, organizational culture, and contemplating AI's impact on human civilization. These matters require uninterrupted blocks of time. Daily management ("zoom in") breaks time into bits, hindering deep thinking on major issues. Therefore, he completely separates the two tasks, focusing only on the former and delegating all management to Daniela.

In his own words: "If there's a pile of urgent tasks waiting for you tomorrow, it's hard to focus on the strategic picture."

Where He Allocates His Time

Approximately half of his time is spent on building culture. His specific approach involves holding a bi-weekly all-hands meeting called "Dario Vision Quest," where he writes a lengthy memo himself and then spends an hour discussing it.

His biggest concern is: as the company rapidly expanded from a few hundred people to 2500, with many new employees coming from big tech companies, if the Anthropic culture is not actively instilled, these individuals will default to replicating practices from their previous companies, diluting the company culture.

The remaining time is spent on research direction, strategy, and writing long-form public articles. He dedicates a significant amount of time pondering what AI means for human civilization and disseminates his thoughts through lengthy public articles.

The Logic of Sibling Division of Labor

This isn't a random arrangement but is based on the complementarity of the two individuals' backgrounds. Dario comes from a pure research background, having served as the VP of Research at OpenAI; Daniela comes from an operations background, having been an early employee at Stripe, led the security and policy team at OpenAI, and excels in managing "people." Each focuses on what they do best.

There is one more detail: all seven co-founders of Anthropic are still with the company to this day.

In the world of tech startups, it is common for co-founders to leave one after another, making it indeed rare for all seven individuals to remain. The Amodei siblings see this as proof of the company culture's cohesiveness.

Harvard Professor's Explanation: What Kind of Company Needs What Level of Management

Harvard Business School Professor Raffaella Sadun provided a framework. She likens a company to a problem-solving machine: frontline employees handle routine issues, while more challenging and novel issues move up the hierarchy.

If a company mostly faces known types of problems, the CEO can oversee many people because those below can handle things themselves. The leaders of each division at Nvidia know how to proceed, allowing Jensen Huang to manage 60 people and keep things running smoothly.

However, if a company is constantly dealing with entirely new, high-risk, and unanswerable problems, the CEO requires a narrower span of control to dedicate time to matters that truly need their judgment. Anthropic falls into this category: where the security boundaries lie, whether to collaborate with the military, and which path to take with the next-generation model technology—all these are novel questions.

Her conclusion is: "A manager's time is the scarcest resource."

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

Full Translation:

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei Has Only One Direct Report

Bloomberg · June 10, 2026

Key Points Summary

· Anthropic PBC CEO Dario Amodei has only one direct report, his Chief of Staff Avital Balwit, which is highly unusual in the tech industry.

· The company's executive team reports to Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, who oversees day-to-day operations and reports to the board, allowing Dario to focus on strategic thinking and research direction.

· Dario spends a significant amount of time discussing Anthropic's culture with employees, and amidst the company's rapid growth, maintaining the company's culture is his and Daniela's top priority.

Despite Dario Amodei's significant influence at Anthropic PBC, the co-founder and CEO has only one direct report at this artificial intelligence company.

This is not common in the tech industry. Many tech leaders today are streamlining management layers and expanding spans of control. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has around six direct reports, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has stated that 60 people report directly to him.

Anthropic is experimenting with a different leadership model: the CEO devotes almost all of their time to strategic thinking, organizational culture, and input on research direction and strategy, rather than managing senior leadership. The company's executive team now reports to Dario's sister, Anthropic President Daniela Amodei, who is in charge of most of the company's day-to-day operations and reports to the Anthropic board. The only person directly managed by Dario is his Chief of Staff, Avital Balwit.

"It's incredibly freeing," Dario said in an interview with Emily Chang on Bloomberg's "The Circuit" show. "It makes it a lot easier for me to do all the things I should be doing."

For Dario, as a first-time entrepreneurial founder and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Princeton, early in his career spent in labs doing research often means he spends a significant amount of time contemplating artificial intelligence and its meaning for humanity. He does this through company-wide "Vision Quests" (employee meetings where he reflects on broad topics) and lengthy public articles.

「In many ways, this is a focus and scale issue. If you have a ton of things to do tomorrow, it's hard to focus on the strategic scale,」 he said. 「So separating these two things often makes a lot of sense, so that both things can be done well.」

Prior to co-founding Anthropic, Dario was the Research Vice President at OpenAI, where he parted ways with the ChatGPT maker's leadership and co-founded Anthropic in 2021. Before that, he was a Senior Research Scientist at Google.

Daniela brings more experience in HR management at tech startups, having been an early employee at Stripe and leading the security and policy team at OpenAI.

Anthropic was valued at nearly $1 trillion in its latest funding round and is currently striving to go public ahead of OpenAI.

In 2024, the company onboarded seasoned tech executives, including CFO Krishna Rao, and in 2025, they brought on Chief Business Officer Paul Smith to support the company's rapid expansion. Working alongside all seven co-founders of Anthropic, the Amodei siblings have always seen the retention of all founders as a hallmark of the company's cohesive culture.

Dario estimates that he spends "about half" of his time discussing with employees "Anthropic's culture and how culture operates," and he states that maintaining the company's culture may be his and Daniela's "top priority."

「When you're growing this fast, you're hiring a bunch of people from big tech. If you don't tell them how Anthropic works, they'll naturally replicate what they know, which is how their previous companies operated,」 he said.

Harvard Business School economist and management professor Raffaella Sadun believes that the number of direct reports a CEO manages reflects not only personal preference or leadership style but also the nature of the organization's work. She says that if you imagine the company as a problem-solving machine, frontline employees handle routine issues, while more difficult problems and exceptions move up the chain.

This means that when other leaders in the organization are experienced and can independently handle their own issues, the CEO can have a broader span of management; but when the company is facing a steady stream of new issues and high-stakes decisions requiring more top-level judgment (as in the case of Anthropic), a narrower span of management may be necessary.

In any case, the organizational structure must be carefully considered. "A manager's time is the most scarce resource," Sadun said. Ideally, the design of a company's architecture is meant to protect this scarce resource.

Welcome to join the official BlockBeats community:

Telegram Subscription Group: https://t.me/theblockbeats

Telegram Discussion Group: https://t.me/BlockBeats_App

Official Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BlockBeatsAsia