A new class divide is emerging inside Big Tech

A new class divide is emerging inside Big Tech and nowhere is it more apparent than at Meta. The fault line runs between those who are at the very top of the AI hierarchy and everyone else. You've heard of the K-shaped economy afflicting consumers. Well, call this the rise of the K-shaped company. Just like the broader economic landscape, Big Tech is bifurcating with a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. The AI elite, those driving the next technological revolution, have been showered with eye-popping salaries and endless resources. Employees outside that tight circle are expected to facilitate the AI transformation while increasingly in danger of being made obsolete by it. Their futures are more uncertain and their power is waning. At Meta, some of the have-nots have been forced to work on a team that's been described as "soul-crushing" or a "gulag." Headcounts have continuously been slashed and compensation cut even as profits grow. Workers key strokes and mouse clicks were tracked to train the company's AI agents. But just as widening inequality has fueled anger and backlash outside the workplace, warning signs are flashing at Meta that companies face the same risk — that the technological revolution they're staking their future on could also ignite an open workforce rebellion. Meta's leaders concede they have a problem. Executives have called the rollout of the company's new AI organization "atrocious" and acknowledged the workplace has become "brutal." Employees have been promised more attentive managers, no more mass layoffs this year, bigger team budgets and improved micro kitchens. An unpopular hot desking initiative is being scaled back. None of this is happening because management suddenly discovered empathy. It's happening because treating employees like replaceable cogs instead of partners is bad business. Zuckerberg recently acknowledged that Meta's AI agent development has not accelerated as quickly as executives expected. AI was supposed to flatten organizations. Instead, it's created only more deeply entrenched power structures. And it will take far more than better snacks in the micro kitchens to fix it.