I think that bossless firms can and will replace traditional hierarchies in many areas. However the two are more different in their limitations than they are t

I think that bossless firms can and will replace traditional hierarchies in many areas. However the two are more different in their limitations than they are the same. Bossless systems are not drop-in replacements for hierarchical systems. If you look at bossless firms that are successful, they come in sizes ranging from GitHub at founding to WL Gore (3B in revenue, 30k employees). Scale in terms of firm size is not an issue. However every one of these companies, is narrowly focused. Every one has a narrow mission. There is no way to replace Microsoft or Dupont with a single bossless organization any more than Gore has replaced Dupont. The scale limitation for bossless organizations is that of bredth of focus. Without a narrow focus, whether it is a specific kind of plastic or video games, there is nothing to organize around. Without this, there cannot be spontaneous order. A way to think about this would be the difference between agriculture and permaculture. Large firms of today are like giant factory farms. They are highly ordered by human standards, but in so doing, the complexity cost is high and so productivity is reduced. In a permacultural environment, the scale may be smaller, the order is organic rather than artificial (curves instead of straight lines, multiple species together instead of monocultures, etc), but they are more productive with fewer human inputs. The complexity cost is low. A bossless organization that works well does so because it channels human nature in the right directions. As William Gore, founder of WL Gore, said, every successful organization has a lattice structure, which may or may not be aligned with its hierarchy. It is true that these organizations have two major challenges, namely hiring and firing, but these are not problems which don't admit of solutions. The solutions are just different than they are in a hierarchical model. I do think that bossless organizations will rise up and take over large sections of the economy, but if they do they will be smaller than the companies they are replacing. We will have a more just economy in large part because it will be dominated by a larger number of players and hence it will be more competitive. Ecosystems will win out over machines in the end ;-)