{"id":34667,"date":"2026-04-22T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/?p=34667"},"modified":"2026-07-09T03:54:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T07:54:15","slug":"ai-digital-clone-middle-management-hiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/ai-digital-clone-middle-management-hiring\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Clones, Flat Orgs, and the Future of Hiring"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this week&#8217;s episode, Nick and Geoff unpack two stories from the Wellable Weekly newsletter that both point toward the same question: what happens to management, and to hiring, when AI can convincingly stand in for the people who currently do that work? First up is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s project to build an AI &#8220;digital clone&#8221; of himself so more of his 80,000 employees can interact directly with a version of him. Then it&#8217;s Block CEO Jack Dorsey&#8217;s plan to strip out management layers entirely, eventually aiming for zero managers between him and 6,000 employees. The conversation closes with a look at how AI is already reshaping hiring from both directions, from AI-screened resumes to AI-polished cover letters, and why some companies are experimenting with week-long trial periods instead of traditional interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"video-embed\" style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;\">\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BR0JcdTaJqM?si=mWcA9rKMOdP-hjGg\" title=\"Digital Clones, Flat Orgs, and the Future of Hiring\" style=\"position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;top:0;left:0;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\">\n  <\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"row justify-content-between\">\n<div class=\"cs-btn-light text-center mb-4 col-12 col-md-6 pr-md-4\">\n  <a class=\"cs-button d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center w-100\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/digital-clones-flat-orgs-and-the-future-of-hiring\/id1869414001?i=1000763040859\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"gap: 8px\">\n\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Apple-Podcasts-logo.png\" alt=\"Apple podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"h-auto\" style=\"width: 24px\">\n\n<span style=\"font-size: 20px\">Listen on Apple Podcasts<\/span>\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"cs-btn-light text-center mb-4 col-12 col-md-6 pl-md-4\">\n  <a class=\"cs-button d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center gap-3 w-100\" href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/2qMbQUh5FaeCQYzgOB650j?si=Wv-8u9AwSzCregW1yzJEgg\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"gap: 8px\">\n\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Spotify_White_Logo.png\" alt=\"Apple podcast\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"h-auto pr\" style=\"width: 24px\">\n<span style=\"font-size: 20px\">Listen on Spotify<\/span>\n\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n<div style=\"border: 1px solid rgb(0 0 0 \/ 0.1); padding: 25px 25px 10px; border-radius: 8px; box-shadow: 0 4px 6px -1px rgb(0 0 0 \/ 0.1), 0 2px 4px -2px rgb(0 0 0 \/ 0.1);\">\n<h3 id=\"h-pressed-for-time-here-s-a-quick-summary\" class=\"wp-block-heading nitoc\">Short on time? Here are the key takeaways:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Mark Zuckerberg is building an AI-trained &#8220;digital clone&#8221; of himself, using both public statements and internal, non-public information, so employees can interact with a version of him at scale<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\" data-sourcepos=\"18:1-18:218;1731-1948\">The hardest line to draw with any executive AI clone is authentic, candid feedback; AI tools tend toward sycophantic responses, while real feedback from a real leader is nuanced and often shifts through conversation<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\" data-sourcepos=\"19:1-19:206;1949-2154\">Block CEO Jack Dorsey has announced plans to cut the company&#8217;s management layers from five down toward zero over the next two to three years, alongside workforce reductions from 10,000 to 6,000 employees<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\" data-sourcepos=\"20:1-20:233;2155-2387\">The realistic driver behind digital clones and flatter orgs is the same: companies have been steadily increasing the ratio of employees to managers, and AI tools are what make managing far more direct reports logistically possible<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\" data-sourcepos=\"21:1-21:314;2388-2701\">AI is reshaping hiring on both sides: employers are using it to screen resumes and proactively source candidates, while job seekers are using it to generate highly tailored, AI-crafted cover letters at scale, and some companies are testing week-long trial periods as a more substantive alternative to interviews<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"episode-summary\">Episode Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"mark-zuckerbergs-digital-clone-and-the-limits-of-authentic-feedback\">Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s Digital Clone and the Limits of Authentic Feedback<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nick opens with a story from the Wellable Weekly newsletter about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s effort to build an AI version of himself. The idea is straightforward on its face: with roughly 80,000 employees at Meta, most staff will never get direct access to their CEO. A digital clone, trained not just on Zuckerberg&#8217;s public statements, mannerisms, and tone but also on internal strategy presentations that aren&#8217;t publicly available, could let far more employees &#8220;interact&#8221; with a version of him, whether to ask questions or solicit feedback on their work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Geoff notes that the idea drew some understandable skepticism from the broader business community, and that it echoes Meta&#8217;s earlier, expensive bet on the metaverse and digital avatars, a vision that never fully took off in the way the company hoped. But Geoff also raises the more practical question: would a conversation with a digital clone ever have real substance? He imagines talking to an AI version of Wellable&#8217;s own CEO, and points out that genuine feedback is usually iterative. A leader gives an opinion, watches how someone responds, and often shifts position by the end of the conversation. Where, exactly, would a digital clone be able to safely offer a real opinion without misrepresenting what the actual person would say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nick agrees that line is hard to define. He sees a clear, low-risk use case: executives spend enormous amounts of time repeating themselves, restating the same strategic point in an all-hands meeting and then again in a dozen smaller meetings as people ask follow-up questions. A clone that could field those repetitive follow-ups and go a layer deeper would save real time. But he&#8217;s more skeptical about clones standing in for actual candor. Feedback conversations are often as much about testing an idea in real time as delivering it, and AI tools, as prior research on AI sycophancy has shown, tend to be built to keep users satisfied rather than to challenge them. A leader&#8217;s real value, Nick argues, is candor and transparency, not responses smoothed over to land well. He&#8217;s not convinced you can easily train that trait out of a model, at least not yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bigger driver behind projects like this, Nick suggests, isn&#8217;t really about the CEO. It&#8217;s about middle management. Companies including Meta have been steadily trimming management layers, and Meta is reportedly now at a 50-to-1 employee-to-manager ratio, a number likely to climb further after additional planned layoffs. If one manager needs to effectively support 50 or 100 people, a digital clone of that manager, not just the CEO, may end up being the more meaningful application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"flat-orgs-jack-dorseys-plan-to-eliminate-middle-management-at-block\">Flat Orgs: Jack Dorsey&#8217;s Plan to Eliminate Middle Management at Block<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That management-ratio trend leads directly into the second story: Block CEO Jack Dorsey&#8217;s plan to cut the company&#8217;s workforce by 40%, from roughly 10,000 employees down to 6,000. In a blog post co-written with a Sequoia Capital partner, Dorsey laid out a plan to reduce management layers from five down to eventually zero within two to three years, meaning all 6,000 employees would, in theory, report directly to him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nick points out that executing on that vision, setting aside how unusual the idea itself sounds, would essentially require some version of a digital clone. There&#8217;s no realistic way for one person to directly manage thousands of employees without an AI layer doing much of the communication and coordination work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Geoff frames the broader shift in terms of what middle managers actually do. Some of that role is genuinely adding value: managing projects, developing people, making judgment calls. But a meaningful portion of it, as Andy Jassy has also pointed out in discussing &#8220;well-intentioned&#8221; middle managers being cut at Amazon, is information passing up and down the org chart. If AI tools, whether a formal digital clone or something less elaborate, can absorb that game-of-telephone communication load, that could meaningfully reduce the need for the layers of management whose main function has been relaying and translating information. Geoff is careful to note this isn&#8217;t an argument that management disappears entirely, more that people in those roles could spend far more time operating &#8220;at the edge,&#8221; as Dorsey put it, focused on their own domain and supported by AI tools rather than by climbing a reporting chain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nick calls Dorsey&#8217;s zero-manager prediction bold, and is skeptical it fully plays out as described. But he thinks the underlying trend, a steadily rising employee-to-manager ratio driven by AI, is very real. The practical obstacle he flags: to his knowledge, no one gets hired without at least one interview with their actual manager. If a manager is going to oversee 100 people instead of 10, they still, at some point, have to have made 100 hiring decisions. That reality pushes the conversation directly into hiring itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"ai-is-reshaping-both-sides-of-the-hiring-table\">AI Is Reshaping Both Sides of the Hiring Table<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nick walks through how AI is already changing hiring from both directions. On the employer side, HR teams are using AI to sift through resumes, identify strong candidates, and in more progressive cases, proactively reach out to promising candidates on LinkedIn who match a given skill set. On the candidate side, job seekers are using AI just as aggressively: polishing resumes specifically to get past AI screening filters and generating highly customized, bespoke cover letters for every single application. An employer reading one of those letters may feel like the candidate put unusual care into applying specifically to their company, without realizing that same tailored approach was likely used for hundreds of other applications simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That arms race is part of why Nick is drawn to an idea also flagged in the Wellable Weekly newsletter: some companies experimenting with week-long trial periods in place of, or alongside, traditional interview processes. He acknowledges the obvious logistical challenges, most candidates already have a job and can&#8217;t easily disappear for a week, but sees real value on both sides. Candidates get a much more realistic, real-world view of how a prospective manager operates and what the company actually values, well beyond what a scripted interview reveals. Employers, in turn, get to observe how a candidate responds to feedback, how quickly and how well they work, information a set of interviews simply can&#8217;t fully capture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nick connects this back to the digital clone conversation: a company aspiring to the Dorsey or Zuckerberg model of flatter management might eventually have candidates interact with a digital clone during a trial period, with a separate AI tool assessing the quality of those interactions alongside the actual work produced, before a hiring decision is made. Geoff agrees the concept is compelling in theory, acknowledging that for any employer or candidate short on time or infrastructure, some lighter-weight version of this kind of real-world evaluation will likely become more common, even if the full week-long trial isn&#8217;t practical for every role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"frequently-asked-questions\">Frequently Asked Questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n    <section class=\"faq-section\">\n      <div class=\"faq-accordion\">\n\n        \n        <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n          <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_1\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n            What is Mark Zuckerberg's digital clone project?            <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n          <\/button>\n\n          <div id=\"faq_1\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n            <p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"57:1-57:391;9973-10363\">Mark Zuckerberg is developing an AI tool trained to replicate his mannerisms, tone, and public statements, along with internal, non-public information he&#8217;s shared with Meta&#8217;s staff about company strategy. The goal is to let more of Meta&#8217;s roughly 80,000 employees interact with a version of him for questions, ideas, or feedback, since most staff never get direct access to the CEO himself.<\/p>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n\n        \n        <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n          <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_2\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n            Can an AI clone of a CEO actually give useful feedback?            <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n          <\/button>\n\n          <div id=\"faq_2\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n            <p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"61:1-61:532;10426-10957\">It can help with repetitive, informational questions, like restating and elaborating on a strategic point made in an all-hands meeting. It&#8217;s much less clear it can replace candid, nuanced feedback. Real feedback conversations are often iterative, with a leader&#8217;s position shifting as they test an idea against someone&#8217;s response. AI tools also tend toward sycophantic responses that prioritize making the user feel good rather than delivering unvarnished candor, which cuts against what most leaders are actually trying to provide.<\/p>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n\n        \n        <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n          <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_3\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n            What is Jack Dorsey's plan for management at Block?            <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n          <\/button>\n\n          <div id=\"faq_3\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n            <p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"65:1-65:429;11016-11444\">Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced plans to reduce the company&#8217;s workforce by 40%, from about 10,000 to 6,000 employees, while cutting management layers from five down toward zero over the next two to three years. The stated goal is for employees to eventually report directly to him, a structure that would realistically require AI tools, such as some version of a digital clone, to handle the communication and coordination load.<\/p>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n\n        \n        <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n          <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_4\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n            Why are companies flattening management layers?            <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n          <\/button>\n\n          <div id=\"faq_4\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n            <p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"69:1-69:390;11499-11888\">Companies including Meta and Block have been steadily increasing the ratio of employees to managers, with Meta reportedly around 50 employees per manager. AI tools are making it more logistically feasible for a single manager, or even a CEO, to oversee far more people directly by absorbing some of the communication and information-passing work that middle managers traditionally handled.<\/p>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n\n        \n        <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n          <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_5\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n            How is AI changing the hiring process?            <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n          <\/button>\n\n          <div id=\"faq_5\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n            <p>AI is reshaping hiring on both sides of the table. Employers are using it to screen resumes, identify qualified candidates, and in some cases proactively source candidates on platforms like LinkedIn. Candidates are using AI just as aggressively, tailoring resumes to get past AI filters and generating highly customized cover letters for large numbers of applications at once, which can make a mass-produced application look far more personalized than it actually is.<\/p>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n\n        \n        <div class=\"faq-item card card-faq\">\n          <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"faq_6\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n            What is a week-long hiring trial, and why are companies trying it?            <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n          <\/button>\n\n          <div id=\"faq_6\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n            <p>A week-long trial is an alternative to traditional interviews where a candidate works with a company in a real-world setting for about a week before a hiring decision is made. It gives candidates a much clearer picture of how a manager operates and what a company actually values, and gives employers a chance to see how someone responds to feedback and how well they perform on real work, insight that&#8217;s difficult to get from interviews alone.<\/p>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n\n        \n      <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n\n    \n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"full-episode-transcript\"><strong style=\"color: transparent; visibility: hidden; opacity: 0;\">Full Episode Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n    <section class=\"faq-section toc-helper-accordion\">\n      <div class=\"faq-accordion\">\n\n        \n        <div class=\"custom-accordion-item\">\n          <button \n            class=\"faq-question\" \n            data-target=\"transcript_1\"\n            type=\"button\"\n          >\n            <h2 id=\"full-episode-transcript\"><strong>Full Episode Transcript<\/strong><\/h2>\n            <span class=\"icon\"><\/span>\n          <\/button>\n\n          <div id=\"transcript_1\" class=\"faq-answer\">\n            <p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"81:1-81:220;12949-13168\"><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Welcome to the Wellable Weekly Podcast, where we talk about key topics and trends at the intersection of wellbeing, technology, and HR. I&#8217;m Nick, along with my good friend, Geoff. Geoff, happy Marathon Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"83:1-83:359;13170-13528\"><strong>Geoff:<\/strong> Yeah, happy Marathon Monday. Always a highlight of the year in the Boston area, right? For those who don&#8217;t know, Wellable is headquartered in Boston, right in Downtown Crossing, so we definitely get to experience the energy and everything that comes with Marathon Monday. But it looks like you&#8217;re in the office, so what&#8217;s the vibe around the city?<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"85:1-85:841;13530-14370\"><strong>Nick:<\/strong> I am in the office. I needed the mic to do the podcast, so I had to come in. The city&#8217;s dead. If you&#8217;re not in the marathon, and you&#8217;re not watching or running it, no one&#8217;s coming in. I was basically the\u00a0 person on the T who wasn&#8217;t dressed in running gear, but you know, it&#8217;s different. It&#8217;s good. It&#8217;s a disruption from the mundane, typical commute. Like it&#8217;s full of people who are, you know, dressed up or trying to spectate the marathon, you know, our office is near the pickup. So for those who don&#8217;t know, you get picked up. Ton of buses, like literally the entire roads closed three lanes of all these buses that pick people up in Boston, drive them to Hopkinson mass, which is the star of the race. Then everyone runs back to Boston and grabs the stuff they left behind. It&#8217;s a crazy operation, how they do it. So I get off the tee and it&#8217;s just like a little bit of chaos as everything is getting kicked off. But, it was good. It was exciting. You feel like the momentum, the air, the weather is a little bit chilly, but it&#8217;s actually perfect for the marathon. So hoping all the runners. Yeah, exactly. Perform super well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"87:1-87:924;14372-15295\">Speaking of mundane, the Wellable Weekly newsletter had a couple of articles that were that were all, but mundane. My favorite one was about Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and an effort he&#8217;s doing to effectively create a digital clone of himself. He&#8217;s creating an AI version of himself so staff and employees at Facebook can interact directly with &#8220;Mark.&#8221; As you&#8217;d imagine, with around 80,000 employees, not everyone can work directly with him, but if he had a digital version of himself, that becomes a real possibility. So this AI tool is apparently trained on obviously everything that&#8217;s publicly available for Mark, like his mannerisms, his tones, his thoughts, any public statements around company strategy, et cetera. But it&#8217;s also trained on internal information he&#8217;s presented to teams that not publicly available. So the idea is this clone has deep knowledge of who Mark is, what is he thinking, how would he deliver messages, and it becomes a bespoke tool that an employee can use to maybe solicit Mark for ideas or feedback on their performance and things like that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"89:1-89:552;15297-15848\"><strong>Geoff:<\/strong> It&#8217;s an interesting concept to think about. And one that elicited, I think, a few knee-jerk reactions from the broader business community. Some maybe not so fair to Mark. I know he&#8217;s often been criticized for his public persona, which at times can kind of come off as a little bit more robotic,\u00a0 something like this probably doesn&#8217;t help that cause. But also kind of harkens back to the metaverse idea, right? Which several years ago, Meta put a ton of investment into and really set that as the future direction of their company and didn&#8217;t quite take off the way they had hoped, but something like this digital clone or other kind of forms of interactive avatars seems like maybe there&#8217;s a version of that vision that might hit our B2B world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"91:1-91:781;15850-16630\">The other thing I kept thinking about is what those interactions would actually be like, and whether they&#8217;d be substantive. I pictured myself talking to a digital version of you, our CEO of Wellable, often imitated, never replicated, whatever the phrase is. But I found myself certainly appreciating the benefit or the potential benefit of being able to get your perspective on something when we didn&#8217;t have a meeting together or I can hit you with a team&#8217;s message for some reason. But I also thought of how like, oftentimes the feedback you give is nuanced. There&#8217;s a lot of context that&#8217;s taken into consideration. And sure, you can program some of that into the digital clone, which I&#8217;m sure they will, right? But I kept coming back to: where&#8217;s the line between the clone giving statement or\u00a0 feedback of substance, take a stance on something that an employee could act on versus having a guardrail in place to know that I probably don&#8217;t want to go there because I&#8217;m giving this individual opinion that may not fully reflect Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s point of view on that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"93:1-93:740;16632-17371\"><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Exactly, that line is extremely hard to define. I tried putting myself in the shoes of, if I had an AI version of myself, what would I actually use it for? I think the quick win, and I think this is true for basically every CEO, is that you spend an enormous amount of time repeating yourself. You make a comment at an all-hands meeting about a new AI initiative, and then you&#8217;re in a bunch of smaller meetings where people are kind of peeling back the onion, asking the same questions around: &#8220;Hey, what&#8217;d you mean by this? And how are we going to execute on that initiative?&#8221; It&#8217;s just a lot of repeat. It&#8217;s part of the job, I&#8217;m not complaining, but if there were a way to route those follow-up questions to a digital clone that could rearticulate the original point and go a little deeper, that would be genuinely useful.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"95:1-95:1093;17373-18465\">Where the line gets harder is when someone&#8217;s asking for real feedback. A lot of the time when you&#8217;re asking for my input, Geoff, I&#8217;m giving it to you, but I&#8217;m also watching how you respond to it. Whether it&#8217;s feedback on you as an individual or on an idea you&#8217;re sharing, I&#8217;m testing my own thinking against your reaction. Does this work? Does it not? A lot of times you start at point A, but by the end of the conversation you&#8217;ve shifted, in a good way. That creates flexibility. My interactions with AI tools don&#8217;t really have that flexibility. Whether the answer is right or wrong, they tend to speak with absolute confidence. And we know from the Stanford research we&#8217;ve talked about before that these tools are designed to be somewhat sycophantic, to give you responses meant to make you happy. In theory, that&#8217;s not really the goal of a CEO. The goal is candor and transparency, not information sugar-coated to land better. It&#8217;s hard to see how you untrain an AI model to stop doing that. I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s possible eventually, and we always say today is the worst AI will ever be, but we&#8217;re living in today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"97:1-97:605;18467-19071\">So if you had a digital clone of a CEO, I think that line gives you some benefit, but not a ton. And if you ask why Mark Zuckerberg would actually want to do this, the real answer, I think, is the same reason every company, including Meta and a few others we&#8217;ll get to, has been trimming down middle management. Meta is reportedly now at a 50-to-1 ratio, 50 employees for every manager, and they&#8217;re about to go through more layoffs that will likely push that number higher. So even setting the CEO aside, a single manager overseeing 50 or 100 people might benefit the most from an AI clone of themselves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"99:1-99:427;19073-19499\">The other story in Wellable Weekly is about Block, where CEO Jack Dorsey is laying off 40% of the workforce, going from 10,000 employees down to 6,000. He wrote a blog post along with a partner at Sequoia, the VC firm, laying out a plan to reduce management layers from five managers right now down to, eventually, zero within two to three years. Zero meaning all 6,000 employees, assuming headcount stays flat, would report directly to him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"101:1-101:193;19501-19693\">If you set aside how unusual that sounds and just ask how you&#8217;d actually execute it, it has to happen through some version of a digital clone. There&#8217;s no other realistic way to make that work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"103:1-103:832;19695-20526\"><strong>Geoff:<\/strong> I think the concept of what middle managers do can be as extreme as just information passers to those who really add value and\u00a0 help manage projects and things like that. I think that same article, Andy Jassy refers to cutting well-intentioned middle managers. Ultimately, whether it&#8217;s this version of an AI clone from Mark Zuckerberg to a new adoption of just AI tools across an organization to make things overall more efficient, it does feel like there&#8217;s a natural accretive benefit to accelerating that dispersion of information. And you think about the scenario that you described with an all-hands meeting or repeating different strategic directives and any number of communications, be it separate meetings, be it emails, right? Having any sort of AI clone or avatar people could go to for approved feedback and messaging, without even getting into the deeper nuance we talked about, could meaningfully cut down on that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"105:1-105:598;20528-21125\">Even just taking the maybe 80% of communication that amounts to a game of telephone across different channels, and we see some of that at a company like Wellable, but it&#8217;s magnified at these large tech companies, cutting that down and streamlining communication could reduce the need for people whose main role is shuffling information up and down. It&#8217;s not to say there&#8217;s no role for management whatsoever. It&#8217;s just hopefully allowing those folks to, think as Jack Dorsey put in the article, &#8220;live on the edge&#8221; in the sense of just purely be focused on their respective domains and getting support from colleagues where needed, but certainly to a much higher degree now in the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"107:1-107:670;21127-21796\"><strong>Nick:<\/strong> Exactly. It&#8217;s a bold prediction, and I actually respect Dorsey for putting it out there, effectively predicting the extinction of middle management. Whether that fully happens, TBD, it&#8217;s hard to see it playing out exactly that way. But you can absolutely see the number of employees per manager climbing sharply because of AI. One real hurdle: to my knowledge, no one gets hired anywhere without at some point interviewing with their actual manager. Maybe that&#8217;s not universally true, but I&#8217;ve never seen it work otherwise. So if you&#8217;re going to manage a hundred people, at some point you had to interview and hire a hundred people, and that&#8217;s genuinely hard.<\/p>\n<p data-sourcepos=\"107:1-107:670;21127-21796\">The benefit now you&#8217;re seeing in the workforce today is that the HR teams are using AI to sift through resumes, identify good candidates. I think in some cases, if they&#8217;re really progressive is proactively reach out to good candidates, via LinkedIn that you&#8217;ve identified that fit, and in more progressive cases, proactively reach out to strong candidates who match the skill set and criteria they&#8217;re looking for. That being said, the other side of the river is also using AI. You have employees like sprucing up their resumes specifically to get through AI filters, creating really bespoke customized cover letters for every single employer. And the employer who does read it goes, wow, this person put a lot of care and thought, because it&#8217;s so specific to my company. But they&#8217;re doing that to like hundreds of companies. And it allows these individuals to apply to multiples more companies than they could originally and do so in a really quality way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"111:1-111:1134;22580-23713\">That&#8217;s part of why the Wellable Weekly article on week-long trials caught my attention. Setting aside how you&#8217;d actually execute it logistically, since most candidates already have a job, I love the concept. As a candidate, you get to see the organization firsthand, real interactions in a real environment, well beyond what an interview gives you, on how your manager operates, what the company actually values, and so on. That makes you a much better-informed decision-maker about whether you want to work there. Likewise, the employer gets to see how you respond to feedback, how quickly you work, how high-quality that work is. There&#8217;s a challenge of what you can meaningfully assess in a week, but it&#8217;s clearly better than just a set of interviews. And I find that really interesting and compelling where, if you&#8217;re trying to aspire to the Mark Zuckerbergs and the Jack Dorsey&#8217;s of the world, you would have to think that this could be an interesting way to implement it is have these individuals come in, interact with your digital clone or some version of that, have another AI tool assess those interactions and the quality of work and all the things that are critical to you on your end, in terms of making making decision higher and then give out the offers accordingly. And so, I don&#8217;t know, seems like we&#8217;re in a little bit of a bubble in terms of like that working perfectly, but you can see the path there. I find it really interesting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" data-sourcepos=\"113:1-113:839;23715-24553\"><strong>Geoff:<\/strong> It does seem like one of those ideas that, if both sides, employer and candidate, had enough time and resources, would be a real win-win. And in situations where there&#8217;s a lack of time or infrastructure, there will likely be lighter-weight versions of the same idea. Not that every role gets a week-long trial, but thinking about it from both sides, a manager trying to hire deliberately for a great fit, and a candidate who&#8217;s been through the job market, this feels like it could be a real advancement given how much of a flurry of highly AI-customized resumes and cover letters is already out there. That seems like a great place to wrap up the podcast today. Thanks as always for tuning in. You can catch us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Be sure to subscribe to Wellable Weekly for the latest insights. Thank you.<\/p>\n          <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n\n        \n      <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n\n    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wellable Weekly breaks down Mark Zuckerberg&#8217;s AI &#8216;digital clone&#8217; project, Jack Dorsey&#8217;s plan to eliminate middle management at Block, and how AI is reshaping hiring on both sides.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-podcasts"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v20.6 (Yoast SEO v27.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Digital Clones, Flat Orgs, and the Future of 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