do want to point out two consistent features of the management styles we’ve observed at the successful and technologically sophisticated companies we’ve worked with. The first is egalitarianism, especially of ideas. While these companies have a clear organizational structure and management hierarchy, they also have a practice of listening to ideas even if they come from junior or low-level people, and even if they originate far from the R&D department or other parts of the core. Sometimes the upward percolation of these ideas is facilitated by technology, and sometimes it happens via the old
...more
