As layoffs become the law of the land, and artificial intelligence (AI) drives productivity, it is managers that are becoming redundant.
Let’s take the recent layoffs by Coinbase for example. On Tuesday, the crypto exchange announced trimming its global workforce by 14%, or 700-odd roles. In a long post on social media platform X, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said everyone at the crypto company must be "a strong and active individual contributor." He also said that the restructuring aims to develop teams that are “fast, lean and AI-native.”
But how does this spell trouble for managers? Let’s look closely:
‘Player Coaches’ who get their hands dirty
In his post, Armstrong said, “Every leader at Coinbase must also be a strong and active individual contributor. Managers should be like player-coaches, getting their hands dirty alongside their teams.”
He added that the future of the company should have fewer layers to ensure faster decisions, and a leaner cost structure that is built to perform through all market cycles.
“We are flattening our organisation structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO. Layers slow things down and create coordination tax. The future is small, high context teams that can move quickly. Leaders will own much more, with as many as 15+ direct reports,” he said.
Armstrong also proposed having AI-native pods in his company. These pods will have AI-native talent, who can manage fleets of agents to drive outsized impact. The crypto exchange will also experiment with reduced pod sizes, including ‘one-person teams’ with engineers, designers, and product managers all in one role.
If this sounds too futuristic, it may help to know that it’s not. In fact, others from the tech sector have made similar statements in the recent past. Last month, Block CEO Jack Dorsey said the company was slashing 40% of its staff and rebranding managers as "player-coaches."
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel framed plans to cut 1,000 jobs as part of a shift toward small, AI-powered "squads." Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Atlassian's Mike Cannon-Brookes, and others have expressed similar ideas.
Megamanagers
As AI brings about a profound shift in how tech companies operate, mid-level executives and managers seem to be the group most vulnerable to the layoff shock.
The idea that the sole job of a manager is to supervise others, and not contribute or produce actively, dates back to the Industrial revolution, Josh Bersin, a human resources analyst and consultant, told Business Insider. And while that idea has been eroding since, the present AI boom has accelerated the shift and restructured organisation charts, Bersin added.
"Every employee now has an AI agent. The agent might know more than the manager. To make it as a manager in 2026, you have to find more projects to get involved in, new initiatives to lead," Bersin told the publication.
The trend reflects a workspace where managers who remain are expected to be more hands-on, contribute actively, supervise employees and oversee AI agents too — megamanagers if you will.
PayPal CEO Enrique Lores outlined a plan to save $1.5 billion over the next two to three years, with an “AI transformation and simplification team” assisting in that effort. The plan entails cutting 20% of the company’s workforce, Bloomberg reported.
Adapt or Get Left Behind
AI is increasingly driving corporates to shave off their workforce and automate workflows to cut costs and increase productivity, ergo profits. This may either be due to bloated staff levels in the first place or real AI efficiency gains or even ‘AI washing’ — where companies claim to build more AI-powered products or services to appear cutting-edge but hide more serious business gaps.
But it is important to note here that workers who remain must have serious AI bona fides to continue to be employed.
That’s especially true of managers, who are being particularly targeted by recent staff cuts and expected to use AI to do more with less, Raman Shalupau, founder of CryptoJobsList, told Bloomberg.
“It’s not a blanket rule, and you have to look under the hood of each restructuring. But the advancements of AI cannot be denied when wielded by skilled talent,” Shalupau added.
