4 ms·

The best company I've ever worked for had no managers (beside owners). They made it to $1B, loved by HN crowd, their products used by many of you, and nobody ev

by bitL 9y ago

The best company I've ever worked for had no managers (beside owners). They made it to $1B, loved by HN crowd, their products used by many of you, and nobody ever wanted to manage anything there. People just discussed stuff and decided to do whatever looked super interesting. One team there had actually a person that was behaving like a manager, and that product completely flopped on the market.

hossbeast 9y ago
Sounds fun. Did they ultimately succeed as a business though?
jonas21 9y ago
Care to name the company? You only have nice things to say about them, and I think many people are interested...
- ojbyrne 9y ago
  The description fits Valve: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-talks-about-its-unusual-company-structure/1100-6447954/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-talks-about-its-unus...
elliottcarlson 9y ago
I can see it working, up to a point; introducing management can shift how things work overall, but if a company can get away with it, and that's what works for them, then great! Relevant: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/flat-organizational-structure-fails/ https://getlighthouse.com/blog/flat-organizational-structure...
jedberg 9y ago
It sounds like you worked at Valve, or possibly Gor-tex, or another company with similar values. If so, I have a question. How does compensation review actually work? Like what are the detailed logistics? I understand the whole no managers thing and that your peers determine your salary, but how? How does that actually work? Who actually says, "this is the number" and who tells you the number?
rdl 9y ago
Valve (presumably the company you're talking about) is sitting on a money faucet, and while they seem to be good at some things, they're pretty bad at a lot of software/services features which a more traditional management structure could easily do. Flat structure seems like it made more sense for what Valve was 5 years ago than what the product is today.
cwyers 9y ago
If you mean Valve... there's a guaranteed low-effort revenue stream, the Steam client has been awfully stagnant (and the parts that are client-only, like your games library, are the most stagnant of all -- Steam has slowly added tools to help curate the store, but none of those things like tags have made their way to the library, and if you've ever binged at a few Steam Sales and bought some Humble Bundles boy could you use such tools). And a lot of the people responsible for the most beloved projects have left[1][2], and they've had a bonfire of consumer goodwill over the lack of a Half-Life 3 or Half-Life 2 Episode 3. Their last game release was in 2013 with Dota 2, unless you want to count letting Nexon release some free-to-play games using their branding and a VR demo. What I'm saying is, maybe they could use some managers? 1) https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/02/valve-chet-faliszek-writer-htc-vive-departure/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/02/valve-chet-faliszek-writ... 2) https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/kim-swift-leaves-valve-for-airtight https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/kim-swift-leaves-valve-fo...
- latexr 9y ago
  > the Steam client has been awfully stagnant I’ll say. Every time I open it the only thing I can focus on are the close/minimise/maximise buttons that are still on the pre-Yosemite style.

by bitL 9y ago

hossbeast 9y ago

Sounds fun. Did they ultimately succeed as a business though?

jonas21 9y ago

Care to name the company? You only have nice things to say about them, and I think many people are interested...

ojbyrne 9y ago
The description fits Valve: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-talks-about-its-unusual-company-structure/1100-6447954/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/valve-talks-about-its-unus...

elliottcarlson 9y ago

I can see it working, up to a point; introducing management can shift how things work overall, but if a company can get away with it, and that's what works for them, then great! Relevant: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/flat-organizational-structure-fails/ https://getlighthouse.com/blog/flat-organizational-structure...

jedberg 9y ago

It sounds like you worked at Valve, or possibly Gor-tex, or another company with similar values. If so, I have a question. How does compensation review actually work? Like what are the detailed logistics? I understand the whole no managers thing and that your peers determine your salary, but how? How does that actually work? Who actually says, "this is the number" and who tells you the number?

rdl 9y ago

Valve (presumably the company you're talking about) is sitting on a money faucet, and while they seem to be good at some things, they're pretty bad at a lot of software/services features which a more traditional management structure could easily do. Flat structure seems like it made more sense for what Valve was 5 years ago than what the product is today.

cwyers 9y ago

If you mean Valve... there's a guaranteed low-effort revenue stream, the Steam client has been awfully stagnant (and the parts that are client-only, like your games library, are the most stagnant of all -- Steam has slowly added tools to help curate the store, but none of those things like tags have made their way to the library, and if you've ever binged at a few Steam Sales and bought some Humble Bundles boy could you use such tools). And a lot of the people responsible for the most beloved projects have left[1][2], and they've had a bonfire of consumer goodwill over the lack of a Half-Life 3 or Half-Life 2 Episode 3. Their last game release was in 2013 with Dota 2, unless you want to count letting Nexon release some free-to-play games using their branding and a VR demo. What I'm saying is, maybe they could use some managers? 1) https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/02/valve-chet-faliszek-writer-htc-vive-departure/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/02/valve-chet-faliszek-writ... 2) https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/kim-swift-leaves-valve-for-airtight https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/kim-swift-leaves-valve-fo...

latexr 9y ago
> the Steam client has been awfully stagnant I’ll say. Every time I open it the only thing I can focus on are the close/minimise/maximise buttons that are still on the pre-Yosemite style.