> Tangent but I do hope that Musks trim down results in orgs that have less “executives” and a layered cake of a org structure, and more autonomous small teams that execute on shared overarching initiatives.
The core problem is that this approach doesn't really scale out because communication overhead exhibits quadratic growth to the orgs size if it's untamed. The feasible options are:
1. Let the complexity bring chaos across the org
2. One decision maker rule them all
3. Gives some sort of management structures to the org
Your proposal is somehow between the option 1 and 2. The option 1 works pretty well for smaller orgs and it might scale to a quite sizable business if the members are generally competent so org-wide trust can be well-established. But anyway you'll hit a road blocker eventually since people cannot spend all of their time on communication overheads. The option 2 just moves the burden of entire complexity into a single personnel so it's not really a reproducible solution but more of a mere luck.
Hence the option 3 is the only remaining option for regular orgs and many smart people tried to figure out the best structure (or at least best practices) but unfortunately we don't have a definitive answer yet. Google-style "tech level" is one of the tool to reduce communication overhead by setting a common structure for expectations (e.g. "we have 1 L6 and 3 L5s to take that project" is generally easier to convince than length explanations of your team members). It's not ideal but it somehow works so it's adopted.
You're likely right that you'll be much more productive if you can get rid of those bureaucracies, but getting other folks convinced is a completely different story. Trust takes time to propagate and people have a limited time to spend on it. This obviously could be drastically simplified if you can work with Elon (or similar style leaders) directly but his time is extremely limited so there will always be only a small number of people who can enjoy that privilege...
The core problem is that this approach doesn't really scale out because communication overhead exhibits quadratic growth to the orgs size if it's untamed. The feasible options are:
Your proposal is somehow between the option 1 and 2. The option 1 works pretty well for smaller orgs and it might scale to a quite sizable business if the members are generally competent so org-wide trust can be well-established. But anyway you'll hit a road blocker eventually since people cannot spend all of their time on communication overheads. The option 2 just moves the burden of entire complexity into a single personnel so it's not really a reproducible solution but more of a mere luck.Hence the option 3 is the only remaining option for regular orgs and many smart people tried to figure out the best structure (or at least best practices) but unfortunately we don't have a definitive answer yet. Google-style "tech level" is one of the tool to reduce communication overhead by setting a common structure for expectations (e.g. "we have 1 L6 and 3 L5s to take that project" is generally easier to convince than length explanations of your team members). It's not ideal but it somehow works so it's adopted.
You're likely right that you'll be much more productive if you can get rid of those bureaucracies, but getting other folks convinced is a completely different story. Trust takes time to propagate and people have a limited time to spend on it. This obviously could be drastically simplified if you can work with Elon (or similar style leaders) directly but his time is extremely limited so there will always be only a small number of people who can enjoy that privilege...