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Comment by tumidpandora | Hacker News Reader

what does "50% streamlining of management layers" mean?

I'm assuming they look at the org chart, measure the max depth from the CEO to the lowliest employee, and cut that number by half. It's actually the least worse thing in this letter.

Depending on which layers they cut. I know of a company that last year cut the bottom layer of management, giving managers an average of 20 reports. Maximum disruption

Is it? I have a feeling is God cutting the lower layers that actually get things done

Four layers instead of eight? A large company could easily have IC -> manager -> senior manager -> director -> VP -> SVP -> CxO. Maybe Intel was even worse.

Practically it is more than eight, because when multiple branches of managerial deposits cross on the project you are working on, all of sudden your work depends on decisions of dozens of people and their management chains.

Cutting this to four may give compound effect, but IMO this is focusing on the symptoms instead of the real causes like for example people being territorial or obsessed about their promo package. Convoluted managerial chain is often just a weapon to achieve your hidden agenda.

Including CEO, I have eight people in my management chain.

You should see Amazon, some are CEO (Jassy) -> AWS CEO -> SVP -> VP -> VP -> Director -> Sr Manager -> Sr Manager -> Sr Manager -> Manager -> IC

No Senior Directors?

Amazon is known to have had up to 13 or 14 layers for some areas. (source: ex-Amazon coworkers)

My understanding is that say the average employee had 6 levels of management up to CEO before, now they have 4

For those employed, the word "streamlining" is never good.

Nothing, really

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