Agreed. This is a problem of scale in my opinion. When we have 10 engineers, it is easy to check in with everyone and know what they are working on and get a status update. When we have 500 engineers, making sure all their tasks are aligning (organizations are one big race condition) is not just hard but impossible without some sort of tracking system. We all want to grow big. To do so, your processes need to change as you add more people. The exceptions (Valve, Netflix, etc.) that can handle being flat or semi-flat are very unique.
Are they unique because their problem domain allows it or because the leadership is uniquely ideologically driven (and competent) to implement efficient, flat systems?
I think it’s mostly the people. They are die hard about their culture. At most of my workplaces, culture is generic and the company would be willing to set whatever culture rules seemed to work.
