4 ms·
Yeah, the tech-nerd chestnut to bring out here is Dunbar's number. Not that that's necessarily the mechanism, but it's the thing to mention.
by jkaptur 4y ago
Yeah, the tech-nerd chestnut to bring out here is Dunbar's number.
Not that that's necessarily the mechanism, but it's the thing to mention.
- travisjungroth 4y agoAppealing to Dunbar's number for org sizes is a strong signal for me I should de-weight whatever the person is saying. They're just parroting pop-science with reasoning that doesn't hold up to a second of critical thinking. If humans evolved to hold about 150 relationships in our minds, to say that an org has a tipping point of 150 people assumes the members of the organization know 0 people outside of the organization. Maybe this is approximately true for Amish communities. It is not close to true for startups doubling in size every year. The available "relationship slots" for your company is probably more like 10-25. If you want to say "things get weird at about 150+", sure, maybe that's true. But no need to bring up theories that extrapolate primate cranial capacity.
- bjelkeman-again 4y agoMy experience is that one can have multiple 100-150 person contexts and keep track of the people in them, i.e company, football community, friends etc. But it is harder when they get bigger.