GoKawiilKey Takeaways Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says that “people managers” who mainly run recurring meetings will have no real value in an AI-driven workplace.
He sees middle management, especially managers who only oversee others’ work, as increasingly vulnerable to elimination as companies adopt AI.
Chesky says managers will need to be directly involved in the actual work to be considered valuable.
According to Airbnb’s CEO, one entire layer of corporate hierarchy will soon disappear.
Brian Chesky, who has led Airbnb as CEO since cofounding the company in 2007, spoke about the impact of AI on an episode of the Invest Like The Best podcast earlier this week. He said “people managers” faced the most risk of elimination, stating that he didn’t think the role had “any value in the future.”
“People who have lots of recurring one-on-ones are not going to survive,” Chesky said on the podcast. “That kind of leadership style is not going to work.”
As companies invest heavily in AI and face pressure to cut costs, middle managers, particularly those focused on coordinating work, aggregating reports and passing information up the chain, are facing uncertainty. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 20% of organizations will use AI to eliminate more than half of their middle-management positions. Professionals in supervisory roles that don’t involve hands-on work are in danger.
Managers will have to do more than oversee workers
On the podcast, Chesky said that the only managers who will remain relevant are those who get their hands dirty with actual execution rather than just coordinating others. In his view, the AI era demands leaders who can both oversee teams and contribute directly to the work itself. This means managers need technical skills, product knowledge or specialized expertise.
Executives who spend their days translating information between layers of hierarchy or managing workflows are vulnerable because AI tools can increasingly handle those coordination tasks, Chesky explained. Surviving in the age of AI means becoming indispensable to a company, not just providing oversight of the people who do the real work.
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