Hey friends,
Last week, I was scrolling LinkedIn, and I kept seeing the same pattern over and over.
New sales leadership hire at Anthropic in London or Dublin with a pretty similar background...one from Oracle, another from Salesforce.
Another from Slack, a new sales leader at OpenAI EMEA from SAP.
At some point, I just stopped scrolling because I had seen this movie before.
I lived in Dublin for over 10 years, spending four years at LinkedIn's EMEA headquarters.
I spent those years deep in corporate America.
Honestly, it wasn’t for me, which pushed me toward startups.
But I learned how that hiring machine works.
I learned how these companies scale from millions to billions.
I remember back on the sales floor of LinkedIn Sales Solution in Dublin, 7 out of 10 people came from Oracle, SAP, Salesforce, or a company that looked exactly like one of those.
Then there were a few underdogs (like myself).
But mostly were salespeople coming from similar backgrounds, companies and universities.
Diversity was a word in the all-hands deck.
The sales floor told a different story.
You would think a company building the most advanced tech of our time would also innovate in sales, introducing different structures or approaches compared to traditional firms.
Maybe a brand new type of seller.
A lot of us thought that, me included.
Turns out we were wrong.
Anthropic, OpenAI, and most hyper-growth AI companies are following Salesforce's two-decade-old playbook.
Same roles, titles, backgrounds - familiar people in familiar offices.
My guess is pretty simple.
When you are growing this fast, you do not want to experiment with how you sell.
You want a system that has already worked at scale, in every market, for two decades.
The "predictable revenue" playbook that Aaron Ross put together back in the day is boring, yes, but also the safest bet for a hyper growth company like Anthropic or OpenAI.
So they hire the people who already know how to run it.
And with the strong market pull and inbound - I believe this is going to explode (in a positive way).
There is something interesting going on, though, and I picked it up on a recent Topline Podcast episode.
1. The bonus structure
Anthropic, from what I heard, does not pay traditional sales commissions right now.
Big base salary, strong RSUs, no monthly bonus on top.
That is a meaningful change from how Oracle or LinkedIn used to pay their reps.
2. The quota to OTE ratio
A LinkedIn AE might earn around 100K and carry a 3 to 400K quota. Anthropic is pushing that ratio much higher, with bigger quotas and bigger multiples on what one rep is expected to bring in.
Interestingly companies like Eleven Labs recently shared that their ration is 20X (yes, 20X you heard right).
Which makes sense, because they are inbound-led.
The market is pulling them in, not the other way around.
The funny thing here goes way beyond Anthropic.
Even the most innovative companies in the world end up reaching for an old, proven sales playbook the moment the stakes get serious.
These companies are running Enterprise conversations and deals, 7-8 figures ones.
The system Salesforce built two decades ago is still relevant.
We don't have to copy it, but if you are building your first sales team - do not forget that we don't need to reinvent the wheel.
We can run the same auld playbook and still have a strong upside.
Thanks for reading this far. See you all next week!
