Weeks after cutting around 4,000 jobs, Block co-founder Jack Dorsey has outlined a vision in which companies may no longer require middle managers, arguing in a recent blog post co-authored with Sequoia that as artificial intelligence becomes central to the workforce, organisations could operate without a permanent middle management layer.
Jack Dorsey stated that companies have traditionally relied on layers of managers to relay information across hierarchies, but suggested that with AI systems taking on coordination functions, this structure may no longer be necessary, adding that organisations will need to rethink the assumption that humans must serve as the core coordination layer.
He further stated that artificial intelligence can handle tasks typically performed by middle managers, including tracking progress, understanding workflows and coordinating across teams, while doing so faster and at scale. According to Dorsey, such systems can maintain a continuously updated model of an entire business and use it to coordinate work in ways that previously required human intervention across multiple management layers.
Describing AI as capable of maintaining a real-time model of a company, Dorsey stated that these systems can enable alignment, prioritisation and information flow without relying on human intermediaries, effectively replacing the traditional coordination role of middle management.
The proposal comes as Dorsey implements similar changes within Block, which earlier this year laid off around 4,000 employees, nearly 40 per cent of its workforce, as part of a broader restructuring to align resources with advancements in artificial intelligence, according to reports.
Dorsey suggested that organisations could improve productivity by removing permanent middle management roles and instead operate with three categories of contributors, including individual contributors who build systems, directly responsible individuals who own specific problems, and player-coaches who both contribute and mentor others, while AI assumes responsibility for coordination and real-time context sharing across teams.
He pointed to Block’s ecosystem, including products such as Cash App and Square, which process millions of transactions daily, providing access to what he described as an economic graph that offers a real-time view of consumer and merchant behaviour, with this data feeding into AI models to improve organisational understanding and coordination.
Dorsey’s argument centres on the idea that AI can coordinate work across an entire organisation more efficiently than traditional management structures, suggesting that as these systems mature, companies may no longer require a permanent middle management layer, with alignment and decision-making increasingly handled by intelligent systems, according to the blog post.