AI Flattening Organizations Is The Latest Chapter In A Continuing Story

InnovationEnterprise TechAI Flattening Organizations Is The Latest Chapter In A Continuing StoryByJoe McKendrick,Senior Contributor.Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Joe McKendrick covers how technology moves markets and careersFollow AuthorMay 21, 2026, 01:44pm EDT--:-- / --:--This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more.No daylight between executives and employeesgettyAnd the beatings go on. Meta just terminated 8,000 employees, and Cisco just cut 4,000 loose, CNBC reports. Blame AI if you will, but this kind of disruption is part of something that has been going on for decades, as any former IBM or Unisys employee will tell you. It’s part of a great flattening which continues unabated. Tech companies, because they are so fast-moving in fast-rising and fast-falling markets, have always been more vulnerable to such shifts.Shaun Warman says as much in his latest letter, in which he documents a structural shift taking place under the feet of many companies. He calls it “The Great Flattening,” which is very appropriate. “The pyramid is becoming a plateau,” he writes. “Directors, managers, and individual contributors are “collapsing into one lead role running 25 contributors paired with persistent AI agents. Span of control jumped from 8.1 (2013) to 12.1 (2025) and is on track for ~25 by 2028.”The organizational chart is being redrawn. “The traditional pyramid — CEO at the apex, three to four management layers descending to engineers in teams of six to eight — is being compressed from both ends. Middle management is the most visible casualty, but the cascading effect on titles, responsibilities, and career paths is more interesting than the headcount math suggests.”Warman is spot on, except for one thing. The great flattening – or at least talk of it – has been underway for decades. Talk of flattening the pyramid started in the 1980s. As the economy evolved in the 1970s, “o...