How about if an engineer founds a startup and dictates that this is how it'll be done there, and the startup ends up succeeding? That would fit your second scenario: "an engineer who agrees who by luck or skill gains extraordinary power, implements this new power structure". I think we have seen cases of engineer founders who were in a position to do that kind of thing.
The blog post links to a story about Larry Page "firing" all the project managers; while they didn't exit the company, they were moved to another organization, and it seems Page got his wish of "no managers" in his organization for some time, until there were problems and complaints and "eventually" they started hiring more managers. If he had a fully workable approach in mind, it seems he could have implemented it for long enough to demonstrate its success.
> How about if an engineer founds a startup and dictates that this is how it'll be done there, and the startup ends up succeeding? That would fit your second scenario: "an engineer who agrees who by luck or skill gains extraordinary power, implements this new power structure".
Yes, arguably this is how we got to the current state of affairs, particularly thanks to Larry and Sergey, and the cross pollination and following-on of their approach. What I question is the likelihood of someone with this viewpoint reaching that level of power.
The blog post links to a story about Larry Page "firing" all the project managers; while they didn't exit the company, they were moved to another organization, and it seems Page got his wish of "no managers" in his organization for some time, until there were problems and complaints and "eventually" they started hiring more managers. If he had a fully workable approach in mind, it seems he could have implemented it for long enough to demonstrate its success.