The latest buzzword in tech is flatness, and if you hear it, run.

From Marketplace, I'm Sabrina Beneshore in New York.

First, chip-making giant Nvidia, the world's most valuable company, reported financial results yesterday.

It beat Wall Street's already high expectations.

But the company is also facing stiffer competition. Marketplace's Henry App reports. Invitya nearly doubled its revenue from

selling the computing systems that power AI data centers in the past year, topping $75 billion

in the first quarter. But that growth is not as strong as it was a few years

ago. So the company also stressed to investors that it will diversify its customer base,

beyond the so-called hyperscalers driving the AI boom. It wants to sell more to governments

and to companies that make robots and autonomous vehicles. That says the company faces more

competition in the market for

AI chips, including from some of the huge tech firms that have been its biggest customers.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta are all developing their own chips for AI. I'm Henry App for

Marketplace. About 8,000 employees of MetETA lost their jobs this week.

The company's looking to offset its massive spending on AI and, according to an internal memo, quote,

operate with a flatter structure that can move faster.

That term, flat or flatness, has become a common refrain when tech companies cut jobs.

Marketplaces Megan McCarty Carino has more.

It's hard to coordinate between all the different parts of a growing company.

That's where middle managers come in, says Tristan Battello at Yale School of Management.

The classic job is getting 12 different status updates from four different departments

and trying to understand it in one summary.

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