Advisor equity is one of the few areas of startup compensation with fairly established benchmarks.

Most individual advisors receive 0.1% to 0.25% of equity. Exceptional advisors may receive 1% to 2%, while a full advisory board rarely exceeds 5% in total. These grants are typically earned over one to two years, often with a short cliff or none at all, reflecting the fact that advisors tend to create most of their value through early introductions, expertise, and guidance.

Even within those ranges, grant size deserves scrutiny. A 2% grant may not sound significant, but it is eight times larger than a typical 0.25% advisory grant. That's equity that could have been used to hire key employees or retained by the founding team.

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has just one direct report: his chief of staff. Everyone else on the executive team reports to his co-founder and sister, Daniela Amodei, who runs operations.

This structure lets him concentrate on the areas he believes need his attention most: strategy, research direction, and policy.

Such a narrow span of control is unusual, particularly at a company that private investors recently valued near $1 trillion. As companies grow, founder-CEOs often add more direct reports. Amodei has done the opposite, keeping his list to one. By comparison, Sam Altman reportedly has about six direct reports, while Jensen Huang has roughly 60.

None of these approaches is inherently right. Each reflects a different view of where a CEO's time creates the most value. For founders, the lesson is that span of control is a strategic choice with real tradeoffs, one that should be designed intentionally rather than allowed to evolve by default.

Sources: TechCrunch | moneycontrol