Sources: Meta rehires veteran manager Nick Grudin, who left to join NFT startup Dapper Labs in August 2022, to oversee media and creator relationships
Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg' effort to cut back on middle managers isn't stopping the company hiring more middle managers. Tweets: @sylviavarnham See also Mediagazer Tweets: Sylvia Varnham O'Regan / @sylviavarnham : New: After Mark Zuckerberg pledged to reduce middle management at Meta, the company has rehired longtime partnerships executive Nick Grudin—who left for an NFT startup last year—to oversee Meta's partnerships teams. Story w/ @sizpatel: https://www.theinformation.com/ ... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Nick Grudin spent nearly 12 years at Meta running partnerships before leaving for Dapper Labs in August 2022, when the company was still betting on NFTs as a creator-economy pillar. His return to oversee media and creator relationships lands squarely against Mark Zuckerberg's public pledge to reduce middle management at Meta.
First-order effects
- Meta's media and creator partnership teams now answer again to a veteran operator who knows the internal playbook, restoring an experienced layer just months after Meta's third incremental layoff of 2024 signaled continued headcount discipline.
- Zuckerberg's stated commitment to cutting middle managers is directly contradicted by rehiring one into a senior oversight role — a visible exception his own organization will read as such.
Second-order effects
- Dapper Labs loses its chief business officer back to its former employer, thinning the NFT startup's business leadership while validating that Meta still sees creator and media partnerships as worth senior headcount.
- Other executives who exited Meta during the efficiency push now have evidence that the door swings both ways, complicating rivals' recruiting pitches against a returning-to-form Meta.
Third-order effects
- If selective senior rehiring continues alongside periodic layoffs, Meta's 'flattening' settles into something more cyclical: layers cut in cost pushes and rebuilt wherever revenue-critical relationships demand ownership — a pattern other large platforms under efficiency pressure may replicate.
- Grudin's route through an NFT startup and back also underscores how quickly the industry's 2021-22 web3 talent bet unwound, with established platforms absorbing the execs it briefly pulled away.
The trend: Large platforms are selectively rebuilding senior relationship-management roles even as they publicly commit to thinner management structures, treating 'efficiency' as portfolio pruning rather than uniform flattening.