Airbnb’s CEO says “people managers” will soon become a thing of the past.
Loading audio narration…
Speaking about the impact of AI on the “Invest Like The Best” podcast on Tuesday, CEO Brian Chesky said, “I don’t think people managers will have any value in the future.”
“People who have lots of recurring one-on-ones are not going to survive,” Chesky added. “That kind of leadership style is not going to work. You need to have context.”
Chesky joins a growing chorus of tech execs who say the role of “pure managers” is redundant in the age of AI — employees who solely manage people as part of their job. As more companies announce layoffs and cite AI as a key factor, Chesky’s words are another sign that middle management is an increasingly vulnerable place to be.
Airbnb last made sweeping layoffs during the pandemic in May 2020. A spokesperson for the company said it has not announced any planned layoffs. It is due to report first-quarter earnings on Thursday.
‘Pure managers’ are out
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on Tuesday that there will be no more “pure managers” at the company, as the company announced a 14% staff cut. “We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO,” he wrote in a memo to employees.
In March, Block’s chief, Jack Dorsey, wrote in a blog post with Sequoia partner Roelof Botha that “there is no need for a permanent middle management layer” after the company made sweeping layoffs earlier this year. Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has touted the value of flattening teams for years.
Chesky said managers must now be involved in the nitty-gritty of their company’s work if they want to survive the AI age.
“You don’t manage the people, you manage the work,” Chesky said. If you’re a lawyer, “you have to actually read the case law, and you have to get involved.”
As Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong put it, in the era of AI, managers should become more like “player-coaches” who get their hands dirty alongside their teams.
