i'll discuss joint with jekel-nelson-sinclair. we give the first free entropy proof of popa's famous result that the generator masa in a free group factor is maximal amenable, and we partially recover houdayer's results on amenable absorption and gamma stability. moreover, we give a unified approach to all these results using 1-bounded entropy. the main techniques are concentration of measure on unitary groups as well as voiculescu's asymptotic freeness theorem.