You weren't meant to have a boss (2008) • Hacker News Board

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#61

Post by EA-3167 » Sun, May 31, 2026, 5:54 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #56

antipurist wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any relevant research, but to answer the "So what can we do about it?" question I have a wild idea: invert the power structure, with cooperative of workers hiring their managers instead of managers hiring workers. And no, this doesn't automatically lead to the same tree, just inverted, it could form a much flatter structure. I imagine that a cooperative can hire a person who measures the value genera…

That is making a big assumption that is completely counterfactual. That a cooperative can hire a person who measures the value generated per worker/item and agree upon compensation readjustment. Humanity tried that with Gosplan. It worked pretty terribly. We've had plenty of intelligista think that it would just go perfectly we followed their 'rational' plans. It has been without an exception an exercise in hubris. T…

Rationalists struggle to understand just how irrational people are at scale. In fact they think up these big utopian plans as a way to reinforce the notion that we’re just one good rationalist away from paradise.

Edit spelling

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#62

Post by ornornor » Sun, May 31, 2026, 5:56 PM UTC

NewEntryHN wrote: post #59

dentemple wrote: post #34

Without a firm proposal of what a company can or should do instead, this just becomes another example of complaints being easier to make than actual solutions. We all know that large corps are structured in a way that eliminates individual initiative. So what can we do about it? I've heard of "hierarchy-less" company structures being attempted before. I've also heard that each and every one of those attempts always e…

Maybe shadow hierarchy are still more productive than official ones? Looks like something that wouldn't have that many meetings.

I worked briefly in a “holacracy” type of company. Absolutely hated it. There was a hierarchy, you just didn’t know about it unless you’d been there a while.

The company acted high and mighty like they have principles, the most successful project that was bringing most of the revenue in got a lot of leeway to bypass all ethical review processes so that it could keep feeding the rest of the company’s more ethical but not very profitable projects.

I hated working there and left after a couple months only. Incidentally, that was my last job ever and the straw that broke the camel’s back: I’ve worked freelance ever since.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#63

Post by WalterBright » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #16

zkmon wrote: post #9

I don't think the analogies of animals in the wild or groups of hunter-gatherer is correct to the modern companies. A better analogy is the teams who built pyramids or armies who empowered Alexander or the medieval peasant settlements who regulated societies. It's not about acting on your own or achieving something for yourself. It's about building something which is only possible with collective effort of hundreds o…

> Think of what processes and management was used for pyramid building For what, a glorified tomb? I fail to find anything in history that advanced the sciences or the arts through "collective effort of hundreds or thousands of humans". It's only for war or to consolidate power in the hands of the ruling class, never for the benefit of society at large.

See "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" by Rhodes.

https://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp/...

Also, the Apollo lunar landing. 400,000 people worked on it.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#64

Post by alwa » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:08 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #26

tetromino_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's only for war or to consolidate power in the hands of the ruling class Consider Egyptian and Mesopotamian irrigation and flood management, Persian and Roman roads, Chinese canals...

What about them? These technologies already existed, the only thing that changed is that economies of scale enabled by the centralized power. Smaller tribes and villages could have gone by implementing more localized solutions.

Until local interests conflict. Consider the perennial angst over water rights in the American West…

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#65

Post by WalterBright » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

I don't know why this should be surprising. Large corporations tend to prioritize process over results. In other words, they strangle themselves with bureaucracy.

This is why large corporations don't stay on top for long. They get out-competed by smaller, more nimble companies. You can see this in changes in lists of the top 10 corporations by market value, every 10 years.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#66

Post by MathMonkeyMan » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:13 PM UTC

voakbasda wrote: post #53

antipurist wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not aware of any relevant research, but to answer the "So what can we do about it?" question I have a wild idea: invert the power structure, with cooperative of workers hiring their managers instead of managers hiring workers. And no, this doesn't automatically lead to the same tree, just inverted, it could form a much flatter structure. I imagine that a cooperative can hire a person who measures the value genera…

Don’t stop with work. Governments need to be rebuilt from the ground up. Local first, with taxes flowing there first, and only then do they start to trickle up to the county, state, regional, or federal levels. Central governments should be emergent properties of local systems working together, not a choke point of all power and taxation revenue. The current system is completely backwards, if democracy and representa…

I haven't studied history or political science, but I suspect that a bunch of cooperating individual local municipalities can as easily lead to war as to federalism.

The Federalist Papers talk a lot about factionalism versus tyranny. On a larger scale, look at how long it took what are now European Union members to stop warring with each other.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#67

Post by interludead » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

Plenty of startups recreate the same dysfunction at a smaller scale, just with less process and worse boundaries (I think...)

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#68

Post by marssaxman » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:29 PM UTC

dentemple wrote: post #34

Without a firm proposal of what a company can or should do instead, this just becomes another example of complaints being easier to make than actual solutions. We all know that large corps are structured in a way that eliminates individual initiative. So what can we do about it? I've heard of "hierarchy-less" company structures being attempted before. I've also heard that each and every one of those attempts always e…

> So what can we do about it?

For starters, you can understand that working for a large corporation will make you miserable, and choose to work in a small organization instead.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#69

Post by interludead » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:30 PM UTC

dentemple wrote: post #34

Without a firm proposal of what a company can or should do instead, this just becomes another example of complaints being easier to make than actual solutions. We all know that large corps are structured in a way that eliminates individual initiative. So what can we do about it? I've heard of "hierarchy-less" company structures being attempted before. I've also heard that each and every one of those attempts always e…

I think the middle ground probably isn't "no hierarchy" but "less fake hierarchy"

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

#70

Post by interludead » Sun, May 31, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

antipurist wrote: post #50

dentemple wrote: post #34

Without a firm proposal of what a company can or should do instead, this just becomes another example of complaints being easier to make than actual solutions. We all know that large corps are structured in a way that eliminates individual initiative. So what can we do about it? I've heard of "hierarchy-less" company structures being attempted before. I've also heard that each and every one of those attempts always e…

I'm not aware of any relevant research, but to answer the "So what can we do about it?" question I have a wild idea: invert the power structure, with cooperative of workers hiring their managers instead of managers hiring workers. And no, this doesn't automatically lead to the same tree, just inverted, it could form a much flatter structure. I imagine that a cooperative can hire a person who measures the value genera…

[dead]