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Comparing "no management", "flat structure", "holocracy" to the trend for the tech elite to get free food from the cafeteria is really misleading. Food actually
by CamTin 11y ago
Comparing "no management", "flat structure", "holocracy" to the trend for the tech elite to get free food from the cafeteria is really misleading. Food actually can be provided to someone at zero cost (though of course Google isn't feeding everybody just to be nice). Management can't be just done away with.
Did somebody hire you? He's your boss. Can somebody fire you? He's your boss. Can they tell you to show up at work at certain times, or prevent you from taking the afternoon off to take your kid to the doctor? He's your boss. Can someone control whether or not you get a raise? They're your boss.
Most importantly:
Does somebody extract the excess value from the of the labor you provide, and claim the right to do so by more efficiently organizing the workplace so as to produce value most efficiently? That's what management is.
These functions don't have to be performed by specific people with CO titles, but they do need to be done. A cooperative can perform them in a slightly different way, a partnership by slightly different rules, a privately-held VC-backed corporation by others, and publicly-traded multinationals by yet others.
I have a hard time believing that Silicon Valley is about to see a wave of startups organized in a cooperative structure. The entire culture and infrastructure is built like a factory farm to raise little companies into behemoths by pumping them full of steroids, hormones, and venture capital. I doubt most worker-run companies would make the same kinds of ethical and business decisions that VCs do, and I really* don't see VCs changing the MO to one where they just sign checks and then let the workers decide what to do with them democratically.
That said, if tech talent remains scarce, and therefore in a position to continue demanding the kind of humane treatment all workers would like, that talent may just be able to drive a change--but it won't happen in California. My guess would be that this may drive engineers to the Midwest, with its lower cost of real estate and already-entrenched culture of cooperatives (in agriculture and some industries) and worker-led structures like labor unions. Places like Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, or maybe even college towns like Madison and Ann Arbor (where housing cooperatives are very prevalent and widely-accepted) would be where I would look for this kind of change first. Current "'Silicon $foo' where $foo != 'Valley'" type cities (St. Louis, Austin, etc) may be a good bet too.
In short, Dylan was right, and ultimately, you gotta serve somebody.
- netcan 11y agoI'm not overly convinced by the current "no management" things either. But, I pretty much disagree with you from this on. I think this outlook is either very semantic or are overlooking how much human organisations vary geographically and historically. We have had tribes, clans, nations, hoards, navies, divinely mandated empires, amateur field hockey teams, political parties, a diverse range of associations wherein people wear uncomfortable clothes and vow celibacy... An "organisation" is just a group of people a memoplex of human culture. We have had all sorts. A limited liability company is just one of these. We are going to keep inventing more of them. I don't think it's far fetched to expect that one or two of them will produce camera drones, video games, or medicines. If you think these are all the same, because the abbot is the manager or something along these lines, that's what I mean by very semantic. Otherwise, change is always possible.
- pjc50 11y agoThe parent commentor's point was about access to capital. Yes, there are lots of ways to structure groups of humans. But in today's world only the VC-funded startup gets a relatively unaccountable huge upfront cash injection to build a unicorn.
- icebraining 11y agoWell, the EU is preparing to invest 315 billion euros, and they chose a software startup to illustrate the kind of business they want to invest in. By the way, for reference, VCs invested $48 billion (~= 44 billion €) in 2014, which was the top year since 2000. http://europa.eu/workingforyou/en/content/eu-launches-€-315-billion-investment-offensive-boost-jobs-and-growth http://europa.eu/workingforyou/en/content/eu-launches-€-315-...
- solve 11y ago> Did somebody hire you? He's your boss. Can somebody fire you? He's your boss. Can they tell you to show up at work at certain times, or prevent you from taking the afternoon off to take your kid to the doctor? He's your boss. Can someone control whether or not you get a raise? They're your boss. What are you talking about? In the flat-managed places I've worked in, a group a peers periodically voted on everyone else's performance. If you had to leave the office for something, you announced it (but never asked permission for it ) on the group mailing list. > Does somebody extract the excess value from the of the labor you provide, and claim the right to do so by more efficiently organizing the workplace so as to produce value most efficiently? The one I'm talking about was a publicly traded company, so no. The technical "owner" of the company had little to no say in the management. Maybe this place was not the typical employer. It was in a field where talent is extremely valued. The employees ruled. If you ask me, it's quite a bit harder to brown-nose 20 of your peers, than just one boss. The dynamics were vastly different than a non-flat, 1-boss system.