I've experienced a flat-like organization and I have to say, it was easily one of the worst experiences of my career.
The company was setup like a collection of startups. You would pitch your ideas to executive management who would green light hiring and what not. You'd also borrow or entice engineers over to your group. When I joined, it sounded very interesting, but it was a complete nightmare.
The executive management would green light things, but they'd green light 10x more than could be done by the engineering staff. The hiring queue was so long that you'd be lucky to see engineers hired for your project for 6 months. That meant stealing engineers from other groups which encouraged serious protectionism by doing things like say, loading down your group with busy work to keep your empire intact.
It was a political nightmare because no one was really in charge, so everyone claimed ownership. You had review processes for every single step of development by whatever group claimed ownership over something you touched regardless of how trivial.
The executive management rarely stuck their necks out making decisions. You had to prove something was better with data. The fact that data was easily manipulated didn't bother anyone, as long as they didn't have to take any blame.
The thing is, the company itself is wildly successful and could be held up as a model for flat organizations if you didn't look too closely. But really, it is in spite of their organization rather than because of it.
The fact that Valve has stayed "small" might be the singlemost reason why they're actually pushing for alternative gaming options.
Steam for Linux and the games that come with, do you figure that'd be the case today if the company had sold out like for instance Blizzard?
Steambox/Piston? Yeah, no. It's a novel idea with some potential if they can get the module upgrading right along with a stable whatever Linux distro they end up going with, but no stakeholder og board of Scrooges would sign off on that stuff.
That may be part of the reason, but the biggest reason they're going with Steam for Linux has to be as a bargaining chip against Microsoft, if Microsoft ever tries to go with a Mac-style 'Gatekeeper' solution that requires you to buy applications only from the Windows Store. Gabe even said as much when they released it -- it was in reaction to Windows 8.
> if Microsoft ever tries to go with a Mac-style 'Gatekeeper' solution that requires you to buy applications only from the Windows Store.
This bit of misinformation has now apparently calcified into conventional wisdom; however, 'Gatekeeper' explicitly permits code-signing without publishing through the App Store, with no attendant restrictions, and signed software is accepted by the default security settings.
All other fears boil down to merely the possibility that Apple will change their mind and disallow 'sideloaded' software in the future.
> This bit of misinformation has now apparently calcified into conventional wisdom; however, 'Gatekeeper' explicitly permits code-signing without publishing through the App Store, with no attendant restrictions, and signed software is accepted by the default security settings.
The company was setup like a collection of startups. You would pitch your ideas to executive management who would green light hiring and what not. You'd also borrow or entice engineers over to your group. When I joined, it sounded very interesting, but it was a complete nightmare.
The executive management would green light things, but they'd green light 10x more than could be done by the engineering staff. The hiring queue was so long that you'd be lucky to see engineers hired for your project for 6 months. That meant stealing engineers from other groups which encouraged serious protectionism by doing things like say, loading down your group with busy work to keep your empire intact.
It was a political nightmare because no one was really in charge, so everyone claimed ownership. You had review processes for every single step of development by whatever group claimed ownership over something you touched regardless of how trivial.
The executive management rarely stuck their necks out making decisions. You had to prove something was better with data. The fact that data was easily manipulated didn't bother anyone, as long as they didn't have to take any blame.
The thing is, the company itself is wildly successful and could be held up as a model for flat organizations if you didn't look too closely. But really, it is in spite of their organization rather than because of it.