I've been hearing about this 'creator economy' , 'the great flattening'and all the for a while. Meanwhile managment is stronger than ever at Meta both in numbers and in power.
I don't think "this time will be different"
This aligns with corporate history in America going back decades.
Like how many of these people in the “management” class are actually managers in the sense that they are given agency over resources and how they are deployed vs supervisors who are just there to make sure the real manager’s(usually a Director or VP) plan is executed or alerting up the chain if it isn’t?
I had more say as a supervisor in a deli at age 20 when I picked what shifts people got without the need for any sign off than I have ever had in the tech industry with the word “Manager” in my title. You’re ostensibly in charge of raises and promotions but in reality you are only advising on those decisions and your vote only matters as much as your real manager cares about your opinion
Fast food restaurant chains scale horizontally and scope of each establishment is limited by geography, thus agency can be maintained at the ground level.
But I don't say this to belittle the author, I just mean funny in how people are all grasping around the same elephant (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant). I don't claim to have special insight here, just noticing that this is happening across many diverse professions. My personal theory is that we reached the point of diminishing returns of what can be built and effectuated via software or people management and at some point an economy can't bear the dead weight of people pulling down six figure salaries by moving some javascript or PowerPoint slides around, while the base of the economy (industry, farming, energy production, transportation) dies from lack of investment.
What if the base of the economy is well-paid power point rangers buying stuff? Because that’s what most of our economy is: consumer spending.
It’s some sort of myth that the American farmer is the core of our economy or something.
Moody's says that the top 20% of earners are supporting the economy right now... https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/18/business/us-k-shaped-economy-...
Those "well-paid power point rangers" can't be the base of the economy: properly understood, they're an exploitative/parasite class sitting more towards the top of the pyramid.
One of these is relevant to the conversation.
It's not clear at all where "AI" is going. Once AIs get reliable enough to be put in charge of things, rather than being merely advisory, we will have a very different society. Everybody here has probably read the late Marshall Brain's "Manna", which outlines how that might play out.
(I'm reading Pikkety's new "Capital and Ideology". Not far enough in to comment yet.)
I dont think so. There are amazing things that can be done with either, but they require a completely different way of structuring companies, removing the profit motive, or getting rid of a whole lot of "conventional wisdom" and old people.
There are a lot of amazing things that can be done via the management side of things, but have all but been sidelined since the rise of neoliberalism in the 80s and the MBA-ification of management in the 90s and 00s. Doesnt help that these approaches would require that managers are actually competent and learn to work with complexity, data and the like.
I'm sorry what parallel universe are you living in? My dog produces measurable results regularly, twice a day in fact. This article is a joke.
falcor84•4mo ago
I quite disagree with this and the whole premise. I don't think any knowledge work profession has a moat, and data science (at least in its current form) might be one of the least secure. While I accept the argument that managerial consulting isn't as valuable as it was (and much of that was a mirage to start with), I believe that the ability to maintain situational awareness and to coordinate will become even more crucial.