Valve's internal employee handbook: http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
Last week's WSJ article on Valve's bossless structure, "Who's the Boss? There Isn't One": http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303379204577474953586383604.html
That article also discusses a similarly bossless company called GitHub. (GitHub is central to the tech startup world: if you're a programmer looking for a tech-startup job, employers want to browse GitHub and see your opensource projects. It's like your portfolio, better than a resumé. I've even seen programmers drool over the pricey GitHub Enterprise — mentioning their surprise at desiring "enterprise software", a term otherwise used with contempt.)
Anyway, during today's discussion of the WSJ article, a GitHub employee strongly defended this bossless structure: "If all you read in an article like this is that we're 'goofy' or 'kooky' then you're missing everything that's important and it's a waste of time for you to read the article at all. In fact, if that's what you take and then you try to copy us you will fail horribly in what you do, because you're blindly copying the least important of the many symptoms of this approach." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4154473
A employee's blogpost on what it's like to work at GitHub, including the challenges: http://opensoul.org/blog/archives/2012/06/05/whats-it-like-to-work-at-github/
All the best,
Tj
PS: That last blogpost mentions the meme "first world problems". If you haven't heard it before, it means the frustrations and problems which only wealthy, privileged people experience. Like "I'm so tired of eating... at all of the restaurants near work."
On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 12:11 AM, Dennis Redmond <metalslorg at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 6:59 AM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
>> Yanis's story about Valve Software is amazing - it's run on anarcho-syndicalist principles.
>> More detail soon....
>
> Not just Valve. Many of the best videogame studios in the world are
> run in remarkably democratic, open-source fashion: Sony's Naughty Dog,
> Media Molecule and Santa Monica Studio, Konami's Metal Gear Solid,
> etc. It's a combination of (1) dissident artists who respect open
> source principles, (2) sales are determined by fans, not by
> advertising or networks, and (3) active and cerebral fan communities
> pushing back against corporate greed.
>
> -- DRR