And pretty much all of the kinds of obvious things that you'd expect to see in a "self-organizing" environment are called out.
- de-facto hierarchy takes its place (at valve it seems that there are several overlapping hierarchies, all of which are toxic)
- highly centralized power at the top results in the de-facto highest people jockying for favor and acting as gatekeepers
- innovation stops
- complex projects take forever
- risk taking gets turned into position jostling
- unclear structure leads to unclear reviews
- nobody to resolve disputes
- secrets and rumors dominate information flows
- these problems remain unacknowledged
Look at reviews for other large flat organizations and you'll see the same issues echoed over and over again. Anybody who's worked for a reasonably sized "flat" org will recognize all of these problems as persistent and near universal.
Zappos will be no different. It's just a terrible way to organize labor.
- de-facto hierarchy takes its place (at valve it seems that there are several overlapping hierarchies, all of which are toxic)
- highly centralized power at the top results in the de-facto highest people jockying for favor and acting as gatekeepers
- innovation stops
- complex projects take forever
- risk taking gets turned into position jostling
- unclear structure leads to unclear reviews
- nobody to resolve disputes
- secrets and rumors dominate information flows
- these problems remain unacknowledged
Look at reviews for other large flat organizations and you'll see the same issues echoed over and over again. Anybody who's worked for a reasonably sized "flat" org will recognize all of these problems as persistent and near universal.
Zappos will be no different. It's just a terrible way to organize labor.