Tech Firms Cut Managers in AI Push

Silicon Valley’s AI spending spree now cuts through the middle of the org chart.

Across the tech industry, companies are trimming middle management as executives argue that artificial intelligence lets leaner teams move faster with fewer layers. Reports indicate the shift has accelerated alongside broader layoffs, with leaders framing the changes as a way to strip out bureaucracy and boost efficiency. The result lands hardest on a group that often handled coaching, coordination and day-to-day support.

Coinbase underscored that direction when it cut 14% of its workforce and pointed to a more streamlined, AI-enabled model. It joins Amazon, Block and Meta, where layoffs over the past year have also targeted management layers. The message from the top has sounded familiar: spend aggressively on AI, simplify reporting lines and ask fewer people to oversee more work.

Tech workers say the cuts do more than shrink headcount; they weaken mentorship, support and the routes employees once used to grow into bigger roles.

For employees, this restructuring changes more than who signs off on meetings or budgets. Middle managers often translate strategy into practical work, resolve conflicts before they spread and help junior staff build careers. When companies remove those roles, workers can end up with broader responsibilities but less guidance. Sources suggest some employees see the new model as an experiment they never asked to join.

What happens next will shape not only payrolls but the culture of the industry. If companies keep treating AI as a reason to flatten teams, they may discover that software can speed up tasks without replacing the human work of developing talent and holding organizations together. That matters well beyond Silicon Valley, because the management structures tech normalizes today often become the template other industries try tomorrow.