11Labs operates without product managers, embeds engineers in every department instead
"We don't have any PMs. Never did. We thought ideal person in that role can code, can understand the customer, can understand design. Of course that's very hard to find. So we optimize for profiles that are experts in at least one of those fields but understand at least one other field really well. We embedded engineers in every place and even in the places which aren't engineering. So our talent team will have an engineer, our legal team will have an engineer."
About this episode
In a revealing conversation at an industry event, 11Labs CEO Mati Staniszewski disclosed that his three-year-old voice AI company has reached $600 million in annual recurring revenue, marking one of the fastest enterprise software growth trajectories on record. The company, which launched its human-sounding text-to-speech model in early 2023, accelerated from $100M ARR in 20 months to $600M today, now employing 600 people. Staniszewski revealed the company operates without any product managers, instead embedding engineers across all departments to drive automation and ensure secure AI adoption. He also disclosed that 11Labs has paid over $22 million to voice actors through its marketplace, where creators can license their voices for AI generation. In financial services applications, the CEO noted that customers are significantly more willing to disclose personal financial difficulties to AI agents than humans due to reduced shame and social embarrassment. The conversation also featured Max, CEO of legal AI platform Legora, who revealed his company has sustained 50% quarter-over-quarter growth for seven straight quarters, recently becoming one of the fastest enterprise companies to scale from $1M to $150M ARR. Max explained that the trillion-dollar legal services industry is 96% manual services and only 4% software, creating massive opportunity for AI disruption. He shared that Legora conducts M&A diligence in-house using its own tools, completing transactions in as little as 12 days from LOI to close. Both executives discussed competition from frontier AI labs, with Staniszewski noting 11Labs continues to outcompete OpenAI and Anthropic on voice-specific models through architectural innovation and specialized data labeling. Max argued that fine-tuning general models is wasteful, favoring narrow models for specific high-volume use cases while leaving general intelligence to the frontier labs.
Key takeaways
- 11Labs CEO reveals company hit $600 million ARR in roughly three years, with growth accelerating from 20 months to first $100M to just months between recent $100M milestones
- 11Labs operates with 600 employees but zero product managers, instead embedding engineers across all departments including legal and talent to drive automation
- Voice AI marketplace has paid over $22 million to creators who license their voices, establishing new economic model for voice actors in AI era
- Financial services customers show significantly higher willingness to disclose personal financial difficulties to AI agents versus humans due to reduced shame
- Legal AI startup Legora achieved 50 percent quarter-over-quarter growth for seven consecutive quarters, becoming fastest company to scale $1M to $150M ARR
- Trillion-dollar legal services market remains 96 percent manual services versus only 4 percent software spend, creating massive AI disruption opportunity
- 11Labs continues outcompeting OpenAI and Anthropic on voice-specific models through specialized architecture and thousand-person contractor team for audio data labeling