[paretoer]

Having worked at large corporations and now a small company, I think the reason for this is so no one can be blamed for anything when things go wrong at a large corporation.

The main function is that it insulates upper management from any responsibility of what is going on the ground. They don't even really know. If something goes wrong you can fire some useless cog in the machine 3 links below but they still have an important title so the optics hold.

Without all these layers then upper management has to actually take responsibility for the operation of the company. Instead, they get a nice asymmetrical bet with looking like a genius if things go well but plenty of fall guys if things go bad. It mirrors the pay out of their stock options. If things go well they make a killing, if things go horribly bad they only collect their inflated salary.

The asymmetrical bet is well worth all these useless meetings to them. It is just an operating cost of the rules of this game.

[nine_zeros]

You are absolutely right. The layers are useful for upper management and C-Suite. They are not useful for any actual work, actual workers, or productivity.

In a way, it is an abuse of organizational authority. The company might need more engineers so as to reduce the burden on existing engineers. But the upper management wants to more managers to build their empire to shield themselves from any work. Thus, what gets hired is managers after managers - completely against what the company needs.