3 ms·
The difference here is that there is a high barrier of entry. The people accepted to work at Valve are allegedly elite and compatible with this flat structure.
by ionforce 14y ago
The difference here is that there is a high barrier of entry. The people accepted to work at Valve are allegedly elite and compatible with this flat structure.
I don't think communes are as rigorous about admission.
- jacques_chester 14y agoI think high barriers lower, but cannot prevent, the incidence of shenanigans. But good point.
- columbo 14y ago>The people accepted to work at Valve are allegedly elite and compatible with this flat structure. That or the people that have niched themselves into positions of unwritten-but-assumed authority have decided to hire quiet followers. Just because someone calls an environment a 'flat system' doesn't make it true. There exists just as likely, a very defined system controlled by seniority.
- rmah 14y agoHeh, to me that makes it sounds like the politics it would be worse at Valve, not better.
- ionforce 14y agoWhy would the politics be worse? You are supposedly hiring people who are culturally compatible, possibly apolitical.
- networked 14y ago>The difference here is that there is a high barrier of entry. An even bigger difference might be that the financial goals Valve has as a community are more clear than the goal of "build a good anarcho-syndicalist commune". In my experience communities that have a goal to pursue that's external to the existence of the community are the ones that last while those that don't tend to descend into high school-like popularity contests and fail because of that. BTW, is there anything HN would recommend reading on 1960s-1970s communes and, especially, ways in which they failed?