I'm a huge advocate of ideas like this (repeat, huge), but like many things in life, it is dramatically more complicated when you dig in.
First, hierarchies always form. They might be informal, or quasi-transient, but in the absence of explicit, implicit forms.
Second, things like this are great when the teams are small, or even relatively small. Though once the company grows they start to become impractical. And when you get to a certain size company they would be impossible. I'd love to see a multiple thousand person company in this form with some details on how it operates. I'm nearly certain we'd see "bosses" (in some sense of the word) emerge from somewhere.
Lastly, who mediates? Who makes the hard call? Who pivots the company? Who pivots the product? Who starts a new product? Who axes an existing product? Do people/teams/products/projects have budgets?
The point being, "bossless" (what a terrible term) is great when things are going well, but not so great when hard calls need to be made. If you have ever been in a death spiral for lack of money or bad-product fit, I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about.
I'd love to see some case studies on how it worked at very large companies as well as how it worked when times were really bad.
First, hierarchies always form. They might be informal, or quasi-transient, but in the absence of explicit, implicit forms.
Second, things like this are great when the teams are small, or even relatively small. Though once the company grows they start to become impractical. And when you get to a certain size company they would be impossible. I'd love to see a multiple thousand person company in this form with some details on how it operates. I'm nearly certain we'd see "bosses" (in some sense of the word) emerge from somewhere.
Lastly, who mediates? Who makes the hard call? Who pivots the company? Who pivots the product? Who starts a new product? Who axes an existing product? Do people/teams/products/projects have budgets?
The point being, "bossless" (what a terrible term) is great when things are going well, but not so great when hard calls need to be made. If you have ever been in a death spiral for lack of money or bad-product fit, I'm sure you'll know what I'm talking about.
I'd love to see some case studies on how it worked at very large companies as well as how it worked when times were really bad.