Tech industry leaders are systematically dismantling established management structures, leading to a significant displacement of the native working class, as artificial intelligence is leveraged to reduce human oversight. Openings for middle manager jobs in the US had fallen by 42% by the end of 2025 compared with a peak in 2022, according to research from workforce data platform Revelio Labs. This represents a direct economic and cultural dispossession for a segment that comprised 13% of the US workforce in 2022. Companies including Amazon, Block, Meta, and Coinbase have laid off tens of thousands of employees, specifically targeting management layers, under the guise of AI-fueled efficiency.
Just last week, Coinbase laid off 14% of its workforce, with CEO Brian Armstrong stating the company is "rebuilding Coinbase as an intelligence, with humans around the edge aligning it." Similarly, the fintech company Block laid off 40% of its workers this year. Block's CEO, Jack Dorsey, has expressed an ideal goal of someday operating with all 6,000 employees reporting directly to him, eliminating management layers entirely. This elite vision for a dehumanized workforce is now being implemented.
Elite Interests Drive Dehumanization
This push to thin management ranks is gaining traction among companies rapidly adopting AI, according to Anastassia Fedyk, assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Tech CEOs openly declare AI makes it possible to do more with fewer workers. Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, stated two years ago that he planned to increase the ratio of employees to managers by at least 15%, a goal the company reached last year, and now suggests Amazon "will need fewer people" doing some jobs. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who announced a "year of efficiency" three years ago, now says Meta is "starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person."
At Meta, managers began feeling pressure even before Zuckerberg discussed flattening the company’s management structure in January 2026. Prateek Singh, a software development manager who left Meta weeks ago, noted that managers on certain teams saw their number of direct reports jump and were increasingly expected to contribute code. Previously, managers at tech companies like Meta focused on delegating and guiding, with execution reserved for individual contributors. To cope with these expanded responsibilities, Meta’s managers turned to AI tools for drafting documents, consolidating notes, evaluating employees, and generating code.
Erosion of Human Connection and Oversight
Singh switched his one-on-one meetings with his seven direct reports from weekly to every other week, communicating asynchronously using AI agents that connected with his direct reports’ agents. He observed that this "asynchronous, agent-driven management" leads to people losing touch with the benefits of face time, such as mentorship, human judgment, and guidance. He warned of a future where managers, under pressure, might blindly submit flawed AI suggestions, potentially leading to data leaks, security holes, or system outages.
At Block, some engineering managers were assigned as many as 175 direct reports under its new AI-oriented structure, a drastic increase from the typical six to 12 direct reports. Freeland Abbott, a former technical lead at Square, Block’s digital payments service, who was laid off three months ago, expressed concern that the human parts of managers’ jobs—team motivation, human connection, and support—could be lost. Block’s new approach assigns AI to information sharing, while "directly responsible individuals" oversee strategy and "player-coaches" manage employee growth, effectively removing the traditional human management layer. Dorsey and board member Roelof Botha explicitly stated, "There is no need for a permanent middle management layer."
The Cost to the People
Emily Rose McRae, an analyst at Gartner, noted that the middle manager role is under immense pressure, making jobs harder for everyone. Fewer layers of management mean employees will have fewer opportunities to advance, risking the loss of important human talent. Raffaella Sadun, a Harvard professor, indicated that while tech companies are positioned to make these changes, they will "incur the cost of change," including overhauling work coordination and potentially demoting workers. Matthew Bidwell, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, warned that removing layers of scrutiny means companies "will move faster, but you’ll break more things." Singh, feeling his job was at risk, chose to leave Meta, stating, "I didn’t want to be the guinea pig." This managed decline of traditional career paths and human-centric workplaces underscores the profound cultural and economic shifts being imposed by transnational elite interests. Some former Block employees have responded with "Wow, thank God I was laid off," indicating the profound disruption and dissatisfaction with this new corporate order.
This systematic restructuring, driven by a globalist vision of efficiency, fundamentally reshapes the Western labor landscape, prioritizing technological integration and corporate profit over the stability, development, and human connection of the established workforce.