3 ms·
It's distressing how often, especially among technical people, the equality flat == good is taken as a given. Hackers have a healthy skepticism for arbitr
by mhartl 16y ago
It's distressing how often, especially among technical people, the equality
flat == good
is taken as a given. Hackers have a healthy skepticism for arbitrary authority, but we often erroneously extend that attitude to hierarchical structures in general. In the limit of large numbers of people, hierarchies are the only structures that scale; moreover, they can do so over many orders of magnitude, from small businesses with 10^2 people up to huge organizations with 10^4, 10^5, or even 10^6 people (such as GE, IBM, Walmart, or the U.S. military).
- wladimir 16y agoThat's why small organizations are preferable to most hackers. I don't see how that changes flat == good. GE, IBM, Walmart, or the U.S. military would be places I'd never work, given any choice. Scaling is not necessarily good, it usually means dumbing down to the average.
- jwr 16y agoFair enough. But in that case most hackers should also accept that they won't make a boatload of money. If you refuse to grow your organization, don't expect to be a millionaire, especially if you follow the philosophy of running a cash-positive business in the long term, without selling it. You can't have your cake and eat it, too.