Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company • Hacker News Board

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#71

Post by Murkin » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:14 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #64

Murkin wrote: post #63

Appears there are two types of people, The 37Signal employees: * Like their field and want to be 'hands-on' * Don't mind staying in the same company for 10X years. The supposed norm: * Prefer to advance to other positions vertically * Like moving between companies (for challenge/change). Makes me wonder what is the difference between the two types of personalities and how those affect the organization. For example, i…

I don't think there's really a difference in employees. Everyone reacts to incentives, and it sounds like 37signals has removed titles with pay. Which honestly, I'd much prefer. In many ways titles are a substitute for flat pay. I'd rather have a flat org (and no titles) with wildly different pay (and extreme bonuses, profit sharing, equity grants) -- rather than relatively flat pay and lots of titles (which tends to…

What they removed is not just meaningless titles but rather all management positions. I, for one, don't want to code my whole life. Something 37signals can't offer me.

But there are people who are content to code forever, and I wonder how they differ from people like me.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#72

Post by EricBerglund » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:17 PM UTC

hdctambien wrote: post #68

dugmartin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some lovely muck over here.

Is this getting downvoted because people didn't catch the Monty Python joke? Or because they didn't like this specific reference (but accept the parent's reference)?

It might be because a movie reference that's relevant to the conversation at hand can be humorous, but a movie reference in response to another movie reference is just regurgitating a script. The child comment doesn't really add anything to the conversation other than "I saw that popular movie as well."

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#73

Post by ibejoeb » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:18 PM UTC

It's unrealistic to not promote people. If you run a "flat" organization, you're telling your employees "I don't care that your resume indicates no progression." That's a real career limiter, and it can be perceived as an underhanded way to retain talent.

Also, more pragmatically, how realistic is it to have 30 direct reports?

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#74

Post by jasonfried » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:28 PM UTC

abuzzooz wrote: post #58

brown9-2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's enjoying the title of "President" which, to me, is a purely managerial position. I doubt that what he does in that position is purely managerial. I think you may have a hard time seeing why they value what they do if you impose your own viewpoints on them.

Perhaps you're right. With a smallish company, it's possible for everybody to jump in and do whatever needs to be done. As a company grows, though, this will become impossible. Many a great company in history have suffered spectacular deaths simply because they couldn't scale correctly with their success. In my opinion, it will be impossible to have 200 employees with a flat structure.

I don't care about what 37signals might/could look like at 200 employees. We have 27 employees today and we grow slowly. We're optimized for today. If we have to change down the road we will, but there's no sense in spending even 5 minutes worrying about if what we do today will work when we're 10x as big.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#75

Post by Wolf_Larsen » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:28 PM UTC

hapless wrote: post #69

"The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did not know how much power they would have." This quote really, deeply bothered me. One of the major differences between alpha males and the rest of the population is that they will always assume they'll end up in the top spot. Your prototypical alpha male won't even consider the odds of being on the bottom in that lottery. To push it further, those…

You aren't making a very clear point. Are you saying that : "Alpha males will always assume they'll end up in the top spot, so when they choose rules for a situation regarding two competing agents, their choices will favor the agent in with the most authority"?

If so, then you are assuming a context in which the agents of the situation can change the roles in which they are assigned permanently. That is not the case in this context, because the agents (Jason Fried's support team) are rotated between management and worker, and no one is getting promoted vertically.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#76

Post by jasonfried » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:29 PM UTC

abuzzooz wrote: post #57

jasonfried wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify... "President" isn't a title I use, it's a title often ascribed to me as the founder of the company. Whenever anyone asks for my title I tell them we don't have titles. If they require one for whatever they are writing, I say you can say president or founder if that works, but I'd prefer if they didn't say anything other than founder since founder isn't a title as much as it is a fact. Re: design. Yes, I d…

> To clarify... "President" isn't a title I use, it's a title often ascribed to me as the founder of the company. I apologize if I got things wrong. I was just going with whatever is here: http://37signals.com/about "Jason Fried is the co-founder and President of 37signals." and "Jason co-wrote all of 37signals books, and is invited to speak around the world on entrepreneurship, design, management, and software." wit…

Good catch there. Gonna pull that president mention.

Re: speaking. Not speaking anymore. Really enjoying getting back to product design.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#77

Post by brianleb » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:31 PM UTC

kwis wrote: post #38

michaelchisari wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Mondragon worker cooperative federation has 85,000 employees. If you look at how it's structured, it's not hard to imagine how Google could operate similarly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Mondragon has annual revenues of €174/employee. I have trouble viewing that as a proven model.

174/employee was calculated by assuming that the period in the number of employees is a comma while the period in revenue is a period (e.g. 17M/85K employees instead of 17B/85K employees).

So those figures would indicate 174,000 Euros per employee, which makes a lot more sense.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#78

Post by rosenjon » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:32 PM UTC

The thing I've always liked about Jason's writing and approach to business is that he isn't afraid to say that they might not have the exact right answer. At the same time, they refuse to accept the "conventional wisdom" as being the correct answer; I think too often we believe that because most companies do things a certain way, that all companies should be run that way.

The takeaway for me is that you should be constantly questioning whether there is a different way to run things that enhances the performance of your organization as a whole. I have personally been privy to how the people with the most impressive titles frequently have the least connection to what's going on in the business. Some of the methods taken at 37Signals seem to be aimed at fixing this problem, which I think is commendable.

At the same time, it seems a shame to have to let go of a good employee because they want to take on more responsibility. If their view on more responsibility is simply a bigger title, then perhaps they weren't the right fit for 37Signals. However, in my opinion, ambition and competence should be rewarded, so it seems like there may have been a better way to handle the situation than choosing between staying in the same role and leaving the organization.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#79

Post by izak30 » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

ry0ohki wrote: post #55

jasonfried wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But what works there, or at FC, is not a one size fits all answer." Absolutely. I'm simply sharing our experiences with how we run things - that's what my Inc. articles are about. I wouldn't expect anyone else to do what we do because we do it. Find your own comfort zone. There are plenty of ways to do plenty of things.

I really like your approach, especially making everyone manager for a week. I think the only problem I see with it is that if people want to find another job, their 37signals title makes it seem that they essentially "went nowhere". So even if you are paying them a lot more then when they started and they are the best customer service person ever, their resume still says: "Jane Doe - Customer Service Rep 2005-2011" w…

It looks unimpressive... if you don't know 37s, Honestly I can't imagine that even their CSRs have _that_ hard of a time finding more work.

Re: Jason Fried: Why I Run a Flat Company

#80

Post by andrewflnr » Wed, Apr 06, 2011, 5:39 PM UTC

ibejoeb wrote: post #73

It's unrealistic to not promote people. If you run a "flat" organization, you're telling your employees "I don't care that your resume indicates no progression." That's a real career limiter, and it can be perceived as an underhanded way to retain talent. Also, more pragmatically, how realistic is it to have 30 direct reports?

Doesn't "My salary kept getting raised because I kicked butt" also mean something on your résumé?