3 ms·
I've heard tale that because of the lack of formal structure at Valve, you need political connections to actually get anything done. Perhaps even more so than
by DerpDerpDerp 12y ago
I've heard tale that because of the lack of formal structure at Valve, you need political connections to actually get anything done.
Perhaps even more so than places with a formal structure.
- mercer 12y agoIt's quite likely that some kind of hidden structure emerged. However, could you explain what you mean with 'political' in this context? Because 'political connections', in my mind, also includes reputation and knowledge of competence. And that doesn't seem like a bad thing.
- DerpDerpDerp 12y agoThings that would normally qualify as "soft power", eg, being friends with the right people, trading favors, reputation management, etc. Even the example you give requires reputation management, as opposed to merely raising a good technical argument at the time (as a new person on the staff).
- rhizome 12y agoSure, but you're leaving "competence" unspecified. Political connections are based upon competence at what? Therein lies the rub.
- scott_s 12y agoThere's a famous essay about exactly that called "The Tyranny of Structurelessness". We discussed it about two months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7409611 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7409611
- kyllo 12y agoSomeone already made a variation of Greenspun's Tenth Rule about this--in the absence of formal management, your company will contain an ad hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of management.