Anthropic is taking extreme flat management to a whole new level. CEO Dario Amodei has exactly one direct report: his chief of staff, Avital Balwit.
For comparison, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has about 60 direct reports, and OpenAI's Sam Altman has roughly six.
The company's executive team all reports to president Daniela Amodei (Dario's sister), who handles day-to-day operations and reports to the board. Freed from most management duties, Dario Amodei dedicates roughly half his energy to company culture.
As the team rapidly expands and former Big Tech employees pour in, he's determined to prevent newcomers from simply copying their old employers' habits. He personally runs employee meetings called "vision quests" and writes long philosophical essays to articulate cultural principles.
To support recent rapid growth, Anthropic hired external CFO Krishna Rao in 2024 and chief business officer Paul Smith in 2025. Still, all seven co-founders from the company's earliest days remain on board.