Mark Zuckerberg’s remark about 2023 being a “year of efficiency” looks like it’s turning into a decade of something else. The trend toward eliminating middle management has only accelerated (potentially because of AI’s disruptive effect on the labor market, but potentially cost cutting by another name), culminating in a brutal 2025 for middle managers so far. By one count, 80,000 jobs have been cut in the tech space, with Microsoft alone responsible for 15,000 and counting. Some had dubbed this the “great flattening,” and it’s certainly a bruising welcome to millennials, who make up the majority of managers for the first time ever.
Gen Z has reportedly looked at this situation and responded in a manner befitting the viral corporate scandal of the summer, surrounding Coldplay, an obscure IT firm called Astronomer, and a canny bit of public relations firefighting involving Gwyneth Paltrow. Of course, Paltrow and Coldplay singer Chris Martin introduced the world to their type of “conscious uncoupling,” and Gen Z’s response to management has been “conscious unbossing.”
