I was trying to think of a way to say this, but I think you summed it up fairly nicely. I've read too many articles on HN on how managers shouldn't exist. IIR

I was trying to think of a way to say this, but I think you summed it up fairly nicely. I've read too many articles on HN on how managers shouldn't exist. IIRC, at Google it had become something of a general complaint that there was a lack of managers. That is, there might be 100 employees to one manager, and you'd only see this guy once a year when it came to be review cycle. Managers actually do something, and it's not just to micro-manage, set arbitrary deadlines, etc. It's quite possible for teams to organize towards a task without one. But managers do a lot of other things besides yell at people. I think the common view is too heavily informed by bad bosses. It's true bad management is worse than none, but that doesn't mean none is ideal.