Meta spent three years taking management layers out. They were cut during the company’s Year of Efficiency, the argument was that flatter is faster, and managers were hit again when ten per cent of the workforce was let go this year. When the company built its Applied AI division in March, it was designed so that up to 50 employees without management duties reported to a single manager.
Business Insider now reports that Meta has started asking people in that 7,000-strong division whether they would like to be managers again. Taking the job back is voluntary, and some of those being asked held it before. Meta declined to comment. Across the wider economy, a manager had an average of 10.9 people reporting to them in 2024 and 12.1 in 2025, according to Gallup — close to 50 per cent more than in 2013.
So…:
Which layer did you remove as a cost, and what was it quietly holding together?
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