I'd speculate that it's less about politics and empires, and more about not getting too many cooks in the kitchen. It's easy to blur the vision for your product

I'd speculate that it's less about politics and empires, and more about not getting too many cooks in the kitchen. It's easy to blur the vision for your product when you have opinions coming in from five thousand people, never mind having the entire world speculate and discuss the product that doesn't yet exist. Think back to May 2007. Remember some of the iPhone mockups people were throwing around? Aside from being largely impractical and stupid, there was clearly no "right" way to do it that was obvious to everyone, as the mocks were so incredibly varied. At some point, you have to make a bet on what the best way to proceed is and go with it, or else you'll spend all day debating and not actually get anything done. That's far easier in small, "secretive" groups.