Comment by Aurornis
15 hours ago
> Much of SV was built using non-hierarchical organizations, often bragging that nobody had a title. The greater corporate world embraced flat organizational structures for 1-2 decades and did very well.
I've worked in several "flat" startups and one big company.
None of them were actually flat. There's always a hierarchy. There's always an understand chain of command.
> Toyota famously gave (gives?) everyone on the assembly line the power to stop production, and they were (are?) considered the pinnicle of automotive manufacturing.
This is a good example of how "flat" companies aren't really flat. Assembly line workers can stop production because the assembly line is part of their job. They can't fire anyone or give their peers raises, though. If you ask anyone in the comapny, they can point to the person who can fire them and can give them raises. That's the hierarchy. It always exists.
All that says is there is nothing absolute in any way. There are no absolute hierarchies; all have a degree of flatness, of people lower on the hierarchy with more influence than people above them, etc.
Yes, there are degrees of everything. There is cool, kinda cold, cold, very cold. I'm not exactly sure your point? Seems like you are arguing with a straw man. Who said there are not different degrees of flatness or degrees of hierarchy? The previous poster was just saying that there's always some hierarchy, even if it's unwritten, which aligns with "degrees of flatness."