Managers who do not produce have gotten expendable.
As tech layoffs roll on and org charts flatten, some trade leaders are sending them a pointy directive: Hold tabs in your studies, however remember to contribute, too.
In a letter to Coinbase staff on Tuesday, CEO Brian Armstrong introduced plans to put off 14% of its workforce and stated everybody on the crypto firm have to be “a powerful and energetic particular person contributor.” He additionally stated the modifications imply groups shall be smaller — in some instances, only one particular person and their AI brokers — and that there’ll now not be “pure managers.”
Sound acquainted? Final month, Block CEO Jack Dorsey stated the corporate was slashing 40% of workers and rebranding managers as “player-coaches.” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel framed plans to chop 1,000 jobs as a part of a shift towards small, AI-powered “squads.” Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes, and others have expressed related concepts.
‘Believing the hype’
The pattern displays a shrinking tech world the place middle managers are among the many most weak to cuts, whereas those that stay are anticipated to get their fingers soiled, supervise extra workers, and, more and more, oversee AI brokers, too. They also have a new name: megamanagers.
A January Gallup survey exhibits that managers have been accountable for a median of 12.1 employees final yr, up from 10.9 in 2024. It additionally discovered that 97% of managers are taking up particular person contributor work that falls exterior of their management purview.
Additional, employers additionally marketed 12.3% fewer middle-manager jobs in 2025 than in 2024, in keeping with job web site Certainly. (Listings general additionally declined.)
Tech leaders are among the many first to shake up their org charts this fashion as a result of they have been early to undertake AI, stated Richard Lachman, professor of digital media at Toronto Metropolitan College and writer of “Digital Knowledge: Looking for Company within the Age of AI.” They’re additionally, in lots of instances, robust proponents of the know-how, assured that it could enhance productiveness.
“They’re believing the hype,” he stated.
Which means the bar for fulfillment as a supervisor is rising sharply, with firms anticipating way more hands-on involvement throughout groups and capabilities, Lachman added.
The expectation for managers is to “have sufficient direct on-the-ground information” to carry out the identical work because the individuals they oversee, he stated.
An evolving mannequin
The concept of a supervisor whose sole job is to oversee others — to not contribute straight — dates again to the Industrial Revolution, stated Josh Bersin, a human assets analyst and advisor.
“Labor did the work, and the supervisor informed them what work to do,” he stated.
Whereas that mannequin has been eroding for many years, AI is now accelerating the shift and reshaping org charts, Bersin added, because the know-how automates duties and places huge information at employees’ fingertips.
“Each worker now has an agent,” he stated. “The AI would possibly know greater than the supervisor.”
To make it as a manager in 2026, “it’s important to discover extra initiatives to get entangled in, new initiatives to guide,” Bersin stated.
A Coinbase supervisor who was not affected by Tuesday’s layoffs stated AI has had a major impression on how work will get carried out on the firm.
They stated that Armstrong’s memo did not reveal something new about managers’ tasks, since these expectations had already been communicated. Of their view, managers ought to solely be involved if they do not know how you can use AI or do not have good concepts.
“Then you definitely’re type of in bother,” the employee stated.
