I worked at a startup with an abusive, toxic culture. Insults were used in place of greetings, screaming was used in place of negotiation. The culture came from

I worked at a startup with an abusive, toxic culture. Insults were used in place of greetings, screaming was used in place of negotiation. The culture came from straight from the CEO. The 2-3 managers (total company size fluctuated between 12 and 60) were his old friends who he only rarely attacked, so they imitated or let his shit roll downhill. The CEO was an amazing salesman, though, so employees were hugely motivated for a few months before total disillusionment. The company grew and shrank between 12 and 60 at the impulse of the CEO and that quarter's business model. To address your question, I wouldn't say that growth was extremely well-managed. I can only think of one person besides mgt who stayed longer than a year, typical employment lasted 2-6 months. The company released a 1.0 that got limited traction but never was able to release 1.1 because they had a terrible codebase (due to demotivated coders) which no one could maintain (due to everyone leaving/quitting and no docs). I know of one employee whose loved ones staged an intervention to get them to quit, and one whose doctor ordered them to quit. Last I heard they performed some kind of corporate shell game to get out of obligations to their initial investors (mostly employees) and started from scratch for 1.1. I can't expect anything to come of it. I've never before or since seen such an extreme in culture, but it sold me on thinking of software as a product of the community and culture that created it. I've been blogging a bit about that recently in relation to open source and am consciously planning company culture of the business I'm soon starting.