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Head of Growth (Anthropic): “Claude is growing itself at this point” | Amol Avasare

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Apr 5, 2026

Guest

Amol Avasare

Amol Avasare, Head of Growth at Anthropic and former founder, shares the wild story behind Claude’s meteoric rise. He gets into cold emailing his way into the company, automating growth experiments with AI, why activation became the biggest challenge, when extra friction can boost conversion, and how coding focus sparked a powerful research flywheel.

01:52:49

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Episode notes

Claude Is Starting To Automate Growth Experiments

Anthropic is already automating growth experimentation with CASH, where Claude finds opportunities, builds changes, tests quality, and analyzes results.
Amol Avasare says the current hit rate feels like a junior PM, but the system already ships copy and small UI wins that “print money.”

AI May Increase PM Demand Before It Reduces It

AI may increase the need for PMs at larger companies because engineers gain productivity faster than PMs and designers do.
Amol Avasare said a five-engineer team can behave like 15 to 20 engineers, squeezing product and design unless ratios or responsibilities change.

Let Engineers Drive Small Projects Without PRDs

Let engineers act as mini PMs on small projects and skip PRDs when speed matters more than formal process.
At Anthropic, engineers own projects under roughly two weeks, while larger bets still get kickoff meetings and stronger PM accountability.

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Cold Emailing Into Anthropic

Growth Amid Success Disasters

08:23 • 6min

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Activation Is AI’s Hardest Problem

13:53 • 4min

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Why Good Friction Boosts Conversion

18:06 • 7min

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A Growth Org Built for Big Bets

25:10 • 9min

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Automating Experiments With CASH

33:41 • 7min

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Engineers Got Faster, PMs Got Squeezed

41:06 • 11min

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Skipping PRDs and Starting With Prototypes

Using AI as Analyst, Chief of Staff, Coach

58:10 • 8min

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Coding Focus Created a Research Flywheel

01:06:28 • 6min

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Leaving Money on the Table

01:12:12 • 6min

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How to Stay Valuable in AI

01:17:51 • 5min

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Culture Is Anthropic’s Strongest Moat

01:23:03 • 12min

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Failure, Brain Injury, and Perspective

01:35:13 • 12min

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Books, Pillows, and Life Mottos

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The Joy of Living

Youngi Mingor Rinpoche

In "The Joy of Living," Youngi Mingor Rinpoche offers a practical guide to cultivating inner peace and awareness. The book emphasizes the importance of mindfulness in daily life, guiding readers to observe their thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations without judgment. Rinpoche's teachings draw on the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, providing a framework for understanding the nature of suffering and the path to liberation. Through various meditation techniques and insightful reflections, the book empowers readers to transform their relationship with themselves and the world around them, leading to a more joyful and fulfilling life. The book's emphasis on self-awareness and acceptance resonates with readers seeking a path to inner peace and personal growth. The teachings are presented in a clear and accessible manner, making them applicable to individuals from diverse backgrounds and spiritual experiences.

#125

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Thinking in bets

Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

Annie Duke

In this book, Annie Duke teaches readers how to make better decisions by treating them as 'bets' on uncertain outcomes. She emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between the quality of a decision and its outcome, acknowledging the role of luck, and avoiding biases such as 'resulting' and hindsight bias. Duke draws on her experiences as a professional poker player and combines these with insights from cognitive psychology and other fields to provide tools for making more objective and thoughtful decisions. The book encourages readers to get comfortable with uncertainty, seek truth through diverse opinions, and learn from outcomes to improve future decision-making.

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Awareness

a de Mello spirituality conference in his own words

Anthony de Mello

In 'Awareness', Anthony de Mello combines Christian spirituality, Buddhist parables, Hindu breathing exercises, and psychological insight to challenge readers to wake up from the go-go-go world of illusion. The book, composed of short chapters and lectures, encourages readers to become aware of their thoughts, actions, and motivations. De Mello argues that true happiness and freedom come from dropping illusions and living in the present, free from the constructs of culture, conditioning, and fear. He emphasizes the need to observe oneself, understand negative feelings, and practice detachment to achieve a more authentic and fulfilling life.

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.

In our in-depth discussion, Amol shares:

1. How Amol landed his role by cold emailing Anthropic’s CPO Mike Krieger

2. How Anthropic is automating growth experiments with Claude (their internal tool called “CASH”)

3. Why the ratio of PMs to engineers might need to flip (more PMs than engineers) as AI makes engineers exponentially more productive

4. Why activation is the single highest-leverage growth problem in AI

5. Why Anthropic indexes 70/30 toward big bets (the opposite of most growth teams)

6. How he uses Cowork to detect team misalignment in Slack

7. How the company’s focus on AI coding created a research flywheel that accelerated their models

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Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-1b-to-19b-growth-run

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Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0

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Where to find Amol Avasare:

• X: https://x.com/TheAmolAvasare

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amolavasare

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introduction to Amol and Anthropic’s growth

(03:15) The story of cold emailing Mike Krieger to get the job

(08:28) What it’s like leading growth at the fastest-growing company ever

(10:46) What the growth team actually does at Anthropic

(12:16) The concept of “success disasters”

(13:55) Why activation is the biggest challenge in AI products

(18:05) Improving Mercury’s onboarding experience

(20:57) The importance of adding the right kind of friction

(25:10) Anthropic’s org structure

(27:06) Why Anthropic focuses on big bets over micro-optimizations

(33:34) Automating growth experiments with Claude (CASH)

(38:20) How AI is starting to identify what experiments to run

(41:07) The future of PM, engineering, and design roles

(47:19) Why you might need more PMs as engineers get more productive

(51:13) How Amol uses AI to prototype ideas and skip PRDs

(58:10) Amol’s morning routine: AI analyzes 20 to 25 charts automatically

(1:03:31) Getting coaching from an AI version of your manager

(1:06:27) How Anthropic’s focus on coding and B2B drove their success

(1:12:10) Balancing growth with AI safety as a core mission

(1:18:09) Advice for thriving in an AI-first future

(1:22:53) Anthropic’s culture and the “notebook channels” on Slack

(1:35:12) Failure corner: Shutting down his startup after raising money

(1:38:25) The traumatic brain injury that changed everything

(1:46:49) Lightning round

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References: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/anthropics-1b-to-19b-growth-run

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

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