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I think Google tried this a while ago (flattening the org). It didn’t work, so they went back to having managers.
They did, I actually worked there at the time, my manager had 140 directs. It obviously didn't work. But this time it will work. Because, AI, of course.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They did, I actually worked there at the time, my manager had 140 directs. It obviously didn't work. But this time it will work. Because, AI, of course.
That is insane, Block seems to be very poorly run. The headcount still seems bloated, they'll blame AI and layoff more people for their own incompetence.
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In the USA at least sure. This was in a country with lightly better employment protections so it’s quite uncommon.
In Germany we have pretty good employment protections (I think at least!), but this would be legal too. You have a 3 month grace period where the employer can terminate the contract without giving much reason - you gotta survive this period then the protections kick in and they can’t just terminate the contract without a justification and notice period. It sucks but I think in this case even the best protections won’…
"CEO said a thing" journalism, discussed on HN very recently: https://karlbode.com/ceo-said-a-thing-journalism/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47577735
In this case, a CEO is reaffirming their decision to layoff thousands because of AI was the correct decision.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think Google tried this a while ago (flattening the org). It didn’t work, so they went back to having managers.
They did, I actually worked there at the time, my manager had 140 directs. It obviously didn't work. But this time it will work. Because, AI, of course.
I wonder if that's the main concern or if communication / coordination costs are the larger concern
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I listened to his podcast episode on the Sequoia podcast a few days ago. Interestingly, his argument was "we don't need middle managers" and he plans to have all 6000 employees eventually report to him. In other words, companies don't need managers anymore. Except for one manager. Him.
Twitter was a success _despite_ him. the original idea was strong enough to blast through all of the odd/wrong decisions he took. The time it took to make hashtags a thing, the terrible scaling, the huge overhiring, and deliberate duplication of teams, and his inability/reluctance to make any product decision. Sure he's got great connections, but he is a terrible leader of a buisness
Most of his product philosophy is negatively correlated with businesses that need to make a profit to survive.
I know what he'll do, he'll have someone make a bunch of agents to manage all these poor people via chat. he'll boast about how AI native the company is, it'll be chaos.
I listened to his podcast episode on the Sequoia podcast a few days ago. Interestingly, his argument was "we don't need middle managers" and he plans to have all 6000 employees eventually report to him. In other words, companies don't need managers anymore. Except for one manager. Him.
I've come to realize a lot of business trends can be reduced to "higher ups are now convinced that x is not actually necessary". See "we don't need managers" (flat orgs), "we don't need infra" (DevOps philosophy), "we don't need QA" (devs handling testing), "we don't need product" (product engineering), "we don't need frontend devs" (no code generators) and of course all the AI related workforce reduction. To me, it…
If I showed upper management a functional prototype in a first meeting about a future product, they would assume it was already done and ask when it could ship, while not accepting any dates further out than a month in the future. No way I’d set myself up for failure like that.
The organizations I've worked in and funded would recognize it's a prototype and then staff accordingly unless it a vibecoded portion of a cost center part of the product - those are fine to be one-and-done.