Skip to content

Comment on Ask Valve employees: How well does the flat organization work?

Comments

Another notable company that does this is Gore & Associates (of GoreTex fame):

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._L._Gore_and_Associates)

Unlike the traditional management structure that Bill Gore had experienced at DuPont, he proposed a flat, lattice-like organizational structure where everyone shares the same title of “associate.” There are neither chains of command nor predetermined channels of communication. Leaders replace the idea of “bosses.” Associates choose to follow leaders rather than have bosses assigned to them. Associate contribution reviews are based on a peer-level rating system.

I always assumed this sort of org could only function with relatively small companies (e.g. Github, maybe even Valve) but Gore has 9000 employees - pretty impressive.

Gore divides the company into business units, each in their own building with their own parking lot and staff. In fact, they know when to divide a growing unit - when people start parking on the grass (the parking lot gets full).

So no not 9000 people; 90 units of 100 people ( or something like that)

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.