Airbnb CEO: People-Only Managers Will Be Eliminated by AI

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has declared that managers whose sole function is overseeing other people — without contributing hands-on work — will soon become obsolete in the AI era. His remarks, reported by Business Insider on May 6, add fuel to a growing movement across Silicon Valley to dismantle traditional middle management layers.

'I don't think people managers will have any value going forward,' Chesky stated bluntly. 'Those who have a lot of recurring one-on-one meetings are not going to survive. That style of leadership doesn't work. You need to have context.'

Key Takeaways

• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says 'pure managers' who only manage people will lose their relevance in the AI age
• Coinbase announced 14% layoffs and is eliminating pure management roles, capping hierarchy at 5 levels below CEO/COO
• Block CEO Jack Dorsey stated there is 'no need for a permanent middle management layer' after recent mass layoffs
• Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has also pushed to flatten organizational structures and reduce management overhead
• The trend reflects a broader industry belief that AI tools can replace coordination tasks traditionally handled by middle managers
• Airbnb's spokesperson clarified the company has no current layoff plans, despite Chesky's pointed remarks

Tech CEOs Unite Against 'Pure Management' Roles

Chesky is far from alone in his assessment. His comments join a chorus of tech industry leaders who are actively dismantling the traditional corporate hierarchy. The consensus is clear: in an age where AI can handle scheduling, status tracking, reporting, and even performance analytics, managers who serve primarily as human routers of information are losing their purpose.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong made a similar declaration on the same day, announcing that the cryptocurrency exchange would no longer retain 'pure managers.' Armstrong simultaneously revealed a 14% workforce reduction and a structural overhaul. 'We are flattening the organization, keeping a maximum of 5 levels below CEO/COO,' he stated.

The pattern extends beyond crypto. In March 2025, Block CEO Jack Dorsey and Sequoia partner Roelof Botha co-authored a blog post explaining that after the company completed a major round of layoffs earlier this year, 'there is no need to establish a permanent middle management layer.' Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on a similar path, repeatedly emphasizing his desire to flatten Meta's organization and bring individual contributors closer to decision-making.

Why AI Makes Middle Management Vulnerable

The logic behind this shift is straightforward but profound. Traditional middle managers perform several core functions:

• Information relay: Passing strategic directives down and operational updates up the chain
• Coordination: Scheduling meetings, aligning teams, and managing dependencies
• Performance monitoring: Tracking employee output, conducting reviews, and handling HR processes
• Decision filtering: Making routine decisions that don't require executive attention

AI tools are increasingly capable of handling all 4 of these functions. Project management platforms powered by AI can track progress automatically. Large language models can summarize reports, draft communications, and even flag performance issues. Scheduling and coordination — long the bread and butter of middle management — are being automated at scale.

What AI cannot replicate, however, is deep domain expertise and hands-on craft. This is precisely Chesky's point. The managers who survive will be those who understand the actual work their teams produce — who have 'context,' as he puts it — rather than those who simply facilitate processes between layers of the org chart.

The Flattening of Corporate America

This isn't merely a philosophical debate. Real structural changes are happening across the tech industry, and the numbers tell a compelling story. According to data from Layoffs.fyi, tech companies have laid off more than 120,000 workers in 2025 alone, with a disproportionate share coming from middle management and coordination roles.

The organizational model these CEOs are advocating for looks radically different from the pyramid structures that dominated corporate America for decades. Instead of 8 to 10 layers between the CEO and front-line employees, companies like Coinbase are targeting just 5. This compression eliminates entire tiers of management, pushing decision-making authority closer to the people doing the actual work.

Airbnb itself underwent a major restructuring during the COVID-19 pandemic, laying off approximately 1,900 employees — roughly 25% of its workforce — in May 2020. A company spokesperson confirmed that Airbnb currently has no plans for additional layoffs, but Chesky's comments suggest the company's organizational philosophy continues to evolve in the direction of fewer managers and more makers.

What This Means for Managers and Organizations

For current middle managers, the message from Silicon Valley's most powerful leaders is unambiguous: adapt or face elimination. The path to survival involves several strategic shifts:

• Develop technical fluency: Understand the tools, code, or creative processes your team uses daily
• Become a player-coach: Contribute directly to output rather than merely overseeing it
• Master AI tools: Use AI to augment your own productivity, demonstrating that you can do more with less
• Add strategic value: Focus on decisions and insights that require human judgment, creativity, and contextual understanding
• Reduce meeting overhead: Replace recurring status meetings with asynchronous AI-powered updates
• Build cross-functional expertise: Make yourself indispensable by connecting dots across departments in ways AI cannot yet replicate

The implications extend beyond individual careers. Companies that aggressively flatten their structures gain significant cost advantages. Fewer managers mean lower overhead, faster decision cycles, and — at least in theory — more agile organizations. But the approach carries risks. Without experienced managers serving as buffers and mentors, employee burnout and coordination failures could increase.

A Historical Parallel With a New Twist

Corporate restructuring is nothing new. The 'delayering' trend of the 1990s saw companies like GE under Jack Welch eliminate management layers to boost efficiency. What makes the current wave different is the catalyst: AI provides a genuine technological substitute for many management functions, not just a cost-cutting rationale.

Compared to the 1990s restructuring wave, today's flattening is happening faster and cutting deeper. The availability of tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and specialized enterprise AI platforms means that a single individual contributor can now manage workflows that previously required a team of coordinators. A senior engineer with access to AI-powered project management tools can effectively self-manage in ways that were impossible even 2 years ago.

The question is whether this trend will spread beyond tech. Financial services, consulting, and healthcare — industries with notoriously deep management hierarchies — are watching closely. If Airbnb, Coinbase, Block, and Meta demonstrate that flatter structures deliver superior results, the pressure to follow suit will become irresistible across sectors.

Looking Ahead: The Manager of 2026

The role of the manager is not disappearing entirely — it is being radically redefined. The surviving managers of the AI era will look more like senior individual contributors who happen to lead teams than traditional supervisors who spend their days in back-to-back one-on-ones.

Chesky's vision suggests a future where every leader is expected to be deeply embedded in the work itself. This mirrors the model long favored by startups but rarely maintained as companies scale. AI may finally make it possible to preserve that startup-like flatness even at the scale of a $90 billion company like Airbnb.

For the millions of middle managers worldwide, the clock is ticking. The consensus among tech's most influential CEOs is clear: the era of managing by meetings is over. Those who cannot demonstrate direct, tangible contributions to their organization's output will find themselves on the wrong side of the next wave of AI-driven restructuring. The question is no longer whether this shift will happen, but how quickly it will spread beyond Silicon Valley to reshape the global workforce.