Amol Avasare is Head of Growth at Anthropic, which is going through the most unprecedented growth trajectory in history—scaling from $1 billion to over $19 billion in ARR in just 14 months. Previously, Amol worked on the growth teams at Mercury and MasterClass. Before that he was a founder, and he cold emailed his way into the Anthropic role when no job listing existed. Most remarkably, he overcame a traumatic brain injury from a Muay Thai match that meant he couldn’t work for nearly a year.
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In our in-depth discussion, Amol shares:
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How Amol landed his role by cold emailing Anthropic’s CPO Mike Krieger
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How Anthropic is automating growth experiments with Claude (their internal tool called “CASH”)
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Why the ratio of PMs to engineers might need to flip (more PMs than engineers) as AI makes engineers exponentially more productive
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Why activation is the single highest-leverage growth problem in AI
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Why Anthropic indexes 70/30 toward big bets (the opposite of most growth teams)
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How he uses Cowork to detect team misalignment in Slack
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How the company’s focus on AI coding created a research flywheel that accelerated their models
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Where to find Amol Avasare:
• X: https://x.com/TheAmolAvasare
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amolavasare
Referenced:
• How a traumatic brain injury made me a better PM—and person: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-a-traumatic-brain-injury-made
• Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com
• Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com
• Canva: https://www.canva.com
• Palantir: https://www.palantir.com
• Atlassian: https://www.atlassian.com
• Anthropic’s CPO on what comes next | Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-cpo-heres-what-comes-next
• Claude Code: https://code.claude.com
• Dario Amodei on X: https://x.com/DarioAmodei
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com
• Uber: https://www.uber.com
• DoorDash: https://www.doordash.com
• Anthropic co-founder on quitting OpenAI, AGI predictions, $100M talent wars, 20% unemployment, and the nightmare scenarios keeping him up at night | Ben Mann: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropic-co-founder-benjamin-mann
• Mercury: https://mercury.com
• MasterClass: https://www.masterclass.com
• Calm: https://www.calm.com
• Alexey Komissarouk’s website: https://alexeymk.com
• Alexey’s “Mastering Growth Engineering” course: https://www.reforge.com/courses/mastering-growth-engineering
• Claude Cowork: https://www.anthropic.com/product/claude-cowork
• Making an impact through authenticity and curiosity | Ami Vora (CPO at Faire, ex-WhatsApp, FB, IG): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/authenticity-and-curiosity-ami-vora
• Ami Vora’s Substack: https://amivora.substack.com
• Benepass: https://getbenepass.com
• Brex: https://www.brex.com
• Granola: https://www.granola.ai
• The design process is dead. Here’s what’s replacing it. | Jenny Wen (head of design at Claude): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-design-process-is-dead
• Marc Andreessen: The real AI boom hasn’t even started yet: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/marc-andreessen-the-real-ai-boom
• John Egan’s website: https://jwegan.com
• Workday: https://www.workday.com
• Figma: https://www.figma.com
• Spirit Rock: https://www.spiritrock.org
• This will make you a better decision-maker | Annie Duke (author of “Thinking in Bets” and “Quit,” former pro poker player): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/making-better-decisions-annie-duke
• Marty Supreme: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32916440
• Maruhachi Shinsui Maruhachi Pro: https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Maruhachi-Shinsui-Feather-Pillow-Blissful/dp/B081DNVD3K
Recommended books:
• The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness: https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Living-Unlocking-Science-Happiness/dp/0307347311
• Awareness: Conversations with the Masters: https://www.amazon.com/Awareness-Opportunities-Reality-Anthony-Mello/dp/0385249373
• Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Bets-Making-Smarter-Decisions/dp/0735216371
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.