What was the structure of Bloomberg L.P?

Michael Bloomberg had always wanted to keep the organizational structure in his company as flat as possible. As part of doing this, he avoided job titles for the first fifteen years and ignored organizational charts. The company outsourced several administrative support functions—Bloomberg did not even have a secretary or an assistant—in order to keep the organizational structure thin. The idea of a flatter organization helped Bloomberg reduce costs, and enabled faster decision-making with more direct contact with the decision makers.

During late 1980s, although Bloomberg L.P had established offices in New York, London, Sydney, and Tokyo, there were only four organizational layers separating the CEO from the entry-level employees late into the next decade. It was claimed that Susan Friedlander, the administrating chief, had a very wide span of control in the company with approximately 1,333 employees reporting to her. She in turn, reported to Bloomberg, along with the news department, Princeton data collection, and North American Sales. Bloomberg’s decentralization of the organization thrived on input from the lower-level employees.