This is uncharitable, the parent comment explicitly said CEOs are a power multiplier.
Using your parallel, I think it'd be more fair to compare
> CEO + 300 software engineers, sales people, product managers
> 400 software engineers, sales people, product managers in a flat structure
I tend to think that the former would be more efficient, because otherwise we would be seeing at least some organizations of the latter type outcompeting the former on the free market. We don't, with 1-2 exceptions.
Using your parallel, I think it'd be more fair to compare
> CEO + 300 software engineers, sales people, product managers
> 400 software engineers, sales people, product managers in a flat structure
I tend to think that the former would be more efficient, because otherwise we would be seeing at least some organizations of the latter type outcompeting the former on the free market. We don't, with 1-2 exceptions.