Judd Antin, who led teams at Facebook and Airbnb and now teaches leadership, warns that the "Great Flattening" risks eliminating a crucial organizational layer. He argues that empowered, proactive middle managers accelerate work, raise quality, and provide vital upward feedback. Antin describes how a 2022 reorganization at Airbnb gave managers autonomy and improved outcomes, and he urges both managers and senior leaders to share responsibility for making management effective.
I Ran Managers at Facebook and Airbnb — Here’s Why Cutting Middle Managers Is A Mistake
Antin once had to lay off more than 25% of his team.Courtesy of Judd Antin
Judd Antin spent a decade leading teams at Facebook and Airbnb and now teaches leadership at UC Berkeley and coaches tech executives. He warns that the recent wave of layoffs known as the "Great Flattening" risks throwing out a layer that can be a vital engine of speed, quality, and upward feedback when used correctly.
Why Middle Managers Matter
Middle managers are often painted as redundant bureaucrats, but when given clear expectations and autonomy they can unblock work, parallelize efforts, and surface problems before they become crises. They translate strategy into day to day execution and provide the feedback loop that keeps senior leaders connected to what is happening on the ground.
How I Learned to Lead
Early in my management career at Facebook, I learned a hard lesson: strategy was often discussed behind closed doors, leaving managers without context or clear expectations. After waiting too many times for direction that never came, I adopted a more proactive stance. I focused on building strong relationships with product managers and engineers, set meeting cadences to keep work moving, and made judgement calls when necessary rather than waiting for permission.
Ask for forgiveness, not permission, was a risky rule of thumb I adopted. It did not always go well, and I remember a heated disagreement with a manager I respect. Still, that proactivity helped me rise through the ranks and demonstrate measurable impact.
The Airbnb Design Studio Reorg
In 2022, while leading research at Airbnb, I led a reorganization that created the Design Studio. My goal was to give middle managers real autonomy: senior leaders would set vision, goals, and expectations, and middle managers would determine how to meet them in partnership with peers in product and engineering. We created leadership teams that owned product areas like checkout and customer service, enabling parallel work streams and reducing approval bottlenecks.
The result was faster delivery, higher quality, and clearer ways for managers to demonstrate impact. Middle managers told me they appreciated the setup because it let them own outcomes, not just report status.
Normalize Upward Feedback
One cultural practice we prioritized was upward feedback. I wanted middle managers to feel comfortable raising overlaps in scope, unclear boundaries, or stalled decisions. That input helped shape higher-level strategy and kept me grounded in the realities of day to day work.
What Companies And Managers Should Do
This is a two way street. Middle managers must be proactive, decisive, and oriented to measurable impact. Senior leaders must invest in training, clarity, and real authority for their managers so they can act. When both conditions exist, middle managers are not a cost center but a multiplier.
Executives who flatten organizations for the sake of sound bites risk losing the benefits that a well structured layer of management can deliver. Instead of cutting first, companies should ask whether they have set up managers to succeed.
Note: Meta and Airbnb did not respond to a request for comment.
