zlacker

>>thecal+(OP)
The reasulting reality of the managerless approach hasn’t been good. As the they say, “if you don’t have any managers you have politics”.

I have several friends who used to work at Valve none of them hate the place, they still have friends there, etc. But they tell similar stories as to why things that normal companies do successfully are impossible at Valve. Perhaps it’s best summed up by something one friend said about her year and a half at Valve: “I first learned who my boss was on the day she fired me.”

Google tried this, notoriously dense grating and then firing basically all the managers at an all-hands. That didn’t work out well at all... And now they have over-steered in the opposite direction!

>>gumby+54
> Google tried this, notoriously dense grating and then firing basically all the managers at an all-hands. That didn’t work out well at all...

When did this happen? Sounds absurd. I’d love to read more if anyone has a postmortem or other sources.

>>thih9+0e
It wasn't "Google", it was Larry, apparently on a whim of the moment. It wasn't managers in general, it was project managers. And as I understand it, the project managers were called right back in, so Google was actually never run without them.

That happened in 2001, and is arguably the reason Eric stepped up to take the reins from him.