> He told me that he had worked to develop a tool that would replace effectively all of the middle management function that he was responsible for: gathering information from folks below him, distilling it down and reporting that to people above him.

That sounds an organizational issue. I always thought that a manager should push product vision at their own level, get and organize resources, and assess the talent as fairly as possible. That is, a combination of the job of a general and a PM. Controlling the information may be necessary for survival, but it should not be the job description.

> I always thought that a manager should push product vision at their own level, get and organize resources, and assess the talent as fairly as possible.

LOL, reality is very different. Manager first of all is working to keep his position, second to get promoted. Most of them. For keeping he need to become irreplaceable. For that they create kill zone around eliminating competitors. Working against those with brain, not promoting, giving negative reviews, creating 'cases', taking credits for others job. Making those who can leave. I've seen a lot of this shit. This creates a local depressive shithole. It can go for decades in monopolies and in low competition markets.