It's not a layer of idiocy - that's a common misconception (which I didn't help with, tbf) and unfair to good middle management. What it is is a layer of isolation. And they do also serve another real organisational need, to help coordinate the workforce. Without such a structure, organisation cost is O(N^2). When your business model is paying smart people $X to build a thing, then selling the thing for 10 * $X, you can't let the smart people know that the thing is sold for that much or they'll start demanding more money (or quit and start their own competing company selling a better product for 4 * $X.)