There needs to be a way to reward managers for running teams/organizations that have a big impact with low headcount. After a certain point, in most organizations, the management promotion game becomes almost entirely about headcount underneath you. If you're a middle manager, this is not just true for you, but also for your boss, who is then aligned to help you get more people under you, since those people are also under them indirectly.

> the management promotion game becomes almost entirely about headcount underneath you. If you're a middle manager, this is not just true for you, but also for your boss, who is then aligned to help you get more people under you, since those people are also under them indirectly.

Yes, that's exactly how it works. It helps you move from manager to senior manager. It helps your boss move from senior manager to director, etc.

Growing your team is management 101 for anyone with a minimum politically astute. So if the message you get "from above" is that the budget is unlimited (which honestly seems to have been the case at Uber) then you dream up any justification to increase your headcount.

One of my companies associates. Said things for him got a lot different after he managed a group of 500 engineers. Going from 5 to 50 didn't change things much. But 50 to 500 was night and day.

At my (large but not tech) employer, some mgr/execs hire reams of contractors to pad the headcount, then have to beg/borrow/steal budget to keep them around until they get promoted.

Contractors typically come from a different budget than headcount. So when you can't hire employees, you hire contractors, and then use them to justify your next headcount request. Rinse and repeat.

It seems like this only happens with office staff. In factories where output is very directly measurable, headcount is expected grow slower than or drop compared to production.