Tech workers say AI-driven restructurings are eroding mentorship, support and paths to promotion across Silicon Valley
As tech companies pour billions into artificial intelligence bets and slash their workforces, middle managers are squarely in the crosshairs.
A trend is emerging: when tech CEOs announce that AI is making it possible to do more with fewer workers, they promise to flatten their structures by cutting away what they call unnecessary management layers and bureaucracy. Just last week, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase laid off 14% of its workforce while gesturing to the thrill of AI-fueled, minimal-management efficiency. In doing so, it joined companies including Amazon, Block and Meta that in the last year have laid off tens of thousands of employees with a specific focus on removing management layers.
The push to thin management ranks is gaining traction, especially among companies that are rapidly adopting AI, said Anastassia Fedyk, assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. She’s studied how AI is changing workforce composition. As AI tools make it possible to shift more work from managers to their reports instead, these company’s structural changes could become more permanent, she said.
