The New Job Titles of the AI Era

Your manager might still exist. They just won't be called a manager anymore.

Block CEO Jack Dorsey and VC firm Sequoia recently published a piece called "From Hierarchy to Intelligence," arguing that corporate hierarchy is a 2,000-year-old information routing protocol — and AI has made it redundant.

Meta and Block are already acting on it. Meta is replacing some manager roles with titles like "org lead" and "AI builder." Block calls its managers "player-coaches" — people who build alongside their teams instead of directing from above.

Three roles replace the old structure: Individual Contributor (owns a deep technical skill), DRI — Directly Responsible Individual (owns a specific outcome for a defined period), and Player-Coach (builds the work and develops people simultaneously).

None of them coordinate. That's the job AI took. The difference now is AI can do some of the coordination work, not just changing titles.

Somewhere on a farm in New Zealand, a cow is wearing a solar-powered smart collar that monitors her health, tracks her fertility cycle, and tells her exactly where she's allowed to graze.

New Zealand startup Halter just raised $220M at a massive $2B valuation. The startup has built a system that lets farmers create virtual fences, move entire herds, and monitor every animal 24/7 — from a smartphone app.

The collar trains cattle using audio and vibration cues. Most cows figure it out within three tries. For context, that's faster than most people learn to use a new TV remote. 🐄