In the business we call this "leverage". The whole business is a pyramid of lower skilled workers billing high rates while the "talent" works at a loss and does

In the business we call this "leverage". The whole business is a pyramid of lower skilled workers billing high rates while the "talent" works at a loss and does all of the actual work. You drum out the ones who can't hack it after a year or two and replace them with fresh grads, and you promote and pay the good ones to keep up the charade. And you're spot on about the middle manager thing. That way they can say "I was over 4 teams with 75 heads so I'm ready to be a VP!" when really all they did was approve expense reports and head-nod to everything I told them. Of course, making sure that middle manager gets promoted is also part of the job -- when he gets promoted, he gets a bigger budget. :)