Mark Zuckerberg directly oversees a “core army” of 25–30 lieutenants at Meta and largely relies on them to manage themselves. In a conversation with Stripe President John Collison, Zuckerberg said he didn’t have regular one-to-one meetings with any of the employees he oversees.
Mark Zuckerberg favors a “non-hierarchical” structure at Meta and only directly manages a “small group” of 25-30 employees.
Zuckerberg discussed his management style with Stripe President John Collison at the company’s Stripe Sessions in San Francisco, revealing how many people he manages and his views on one-to-one meetings.
“I think if you’re going to report to me, you need to be able to manage yourself,” the Meta CEO said during the interview, adding that he didn’t do one-to-one meetings with the people who report to him. “But I believe that for the rest of the company, management is kind of important and it’s an important way that people grow.”
Zuckerberg added: “When I say I don’t have one-on-ones, I don’t have recurring scheduled one-on-ones, I talk to all these people constantly, more than they want to talk to me, I’m sure. But I do it when I have something that I want to talk to them about, or if they want to talk to me, I try to generally keep a bunch of time open.”
Zuckerberg is not the only tech leader to swerve regular one-to-one meetings with staffers.
Despite having about 60 direct reports, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also says he doesn’t have regular meetings with them, arguing they slow information flow and create unnecessary hierarchy.
Instead, Huang has said he communicates broadly, gives ad hoc feedback, and only meets privately if employees need him, at which point he’ll “drop everything” for them.
Zuckerberg’s ‘core army’
For his direct team, Zuckerberg said he oversees a group he “ironically” calls “small group” even though it’s made up of 25 to 30 people.
“I invest a lot of time in making sure that there’s a group that’s very connected to each other and that has all the context on what’s going on,” he said, adding that the team worked like a “core army that can go get anything done across the company.”
“I really try to minimize standing meetings so I do two things weekly with this small group…there’s an open-ended strategy discussion and then I go through our…operational meeting where I go through company priorities,” he added.
Zuckerberg said Meta’s work was organized into roughly fifteen distinct product divisions, spanning core consumer apps like Facebook and Instagram, its advertising engine, and emerging areas such as virtual and augmented reality.
Each division is overseen by a senior executive with app-focused teams falling under Chris Cox, Meta’s Chief Product Officer, cross-cutting functions managed by Javier Olivan, the Chief Operating Officer, and groups exploring tomorrow’s technologies—AR/VR platforms, AI research, and other advanced initiatives—answering to CTO Andrew Bosworth.
Meta’s ‘flat’ structure
Zuckerberg has been working on flattening Meta’s hierarchy for years to boost efficiency across the company.
In March 2023, Zuckerberg declared a “Year of Efficiency” at Meta, which aimed to remove multiple layers of management within the company to accelerate decision‑making.
Over the course of that year, Meta announced plans to eliminate around 10,000 roles as part of its flattening effort.
As a result, many mid‑level managers were asked to transition into individual contributor roles to reduce hand‑offs and latency in information flow.
Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
