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During a Thursday earnings call, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said artificial intelligence is changing how the company operates. Chesky said nearly 60% of the code produced by Airbnb engineers is written by AI, adding that this enables teams to ship more features and iterate more quickly.
Chesky also said managers will need to stay closely involved in coding. He argued there is no room at Airbnb for “pure people managers” or “30,000 hands-off managers,” and said he is seeing design and engineering managers return to coding or use Claude Code.
He did not provide details on whether Airbnb plans to reduce managerial roles. Asked about the implications for how teams may be structured in the future, Chesky said it was “way too early to say.”
Chesky’s comments align with a wider trend among executives in recent years toward flattening organizational structures and reducing layers of management. The article also referenced consulting guidance from McKinsey & Company, which recommends using AI agents to streamline operations and reduce the need for managers.
The article cited similar claims from other firms about the share of code generated with AI:
In a separate development, Coinbase announced on Tuesday that it would reduce head count by 14%. CEO Brian Armstrong said in an X post: “We are flattening our org structure to 5 layers max below CEO/COO.”
The crypto bear market remained in force on Wednesday, with bitcoin slipping back toward the $60,000 area. Sharp pullbacks in gold and oil also weighed on the 2025 “debasement trade,” which had supported hard assets amid concerns about government debt and fiat currencies. Meanwhile, tech—particularly the AI boom—continued…
