<story><title>Why Valve? Or, what do we need corporations for..</title><url>http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/why-valve-or-what-do-we-need-corporations-for-and-how-does-valves-management-structure-fit-into-todays-corporate-world/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cs702</author><text>Great article.  Anyone who has worked for a large, established corporation knows from personal experience that internally they are a lot like the Soviet Union, with a hierarchical structure of bureaucrats and their apparatchiks making decisions for everyone at the company.&lt;p&gt;Despite having grown to around 400 employees, Valve is evidently not like that.  The author, Yanis Varoufakis, makes a compelling case that future companies may look more like it than like the traditional hierarchical corporations of today.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;PS. As someone who regularly reads the author&apos;s economics blog at &lt;a href=&quot;http://yanisvaroufakis.eu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://yanisvaroufakis.eu&lt;/a&gt;, finding him on Valve&apos;s corporate blog was the source of quite a bit of cognitive dissonance for me.  (&quot;What the...?  Why is Varoufakis showing up on Valve&apos;s corporate blog?&quot; was my immediate thought.)  I had to do multiple double-takes before it dawned on me that, yes, he somehow works at Valve!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ralfn</author><text>One has to wonder why &quot;large&quot; companies even exist in the first place. Why a building full of freelancers could not do the exact same thing.&lt;p&gt;And then it dawned on me: Valve is providing a &quot;firewall&quot; to unfair competition, financial insecurity, brand awereness, and legal risks. And then it just gets out of the way.&lt;p&gt;Maybe, the pure existence of large corporations, is a sign of capitalism failing. Being large should not give an advantage: yet it allows for a reportaire of anti-competitive behavior.&lt;p&gt;Maybe they should do a nation wide experiment, in smaller country: what happens if you take away the legal standing of all &quot;companies&quot; and &quot;employment&quot;. What if all economic relationships can only exist between individuals?&lt;p&gt;Im not suggesting its some kind of magic bullet, i just wonder how competitive it would be. Will such a system adapt (to changes in the market) and optimize (cutting out middlemans) more quickly? Will it be truly bottom-up?</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Valve? Or, what do we need corporations for..</title><url>http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/why-valve-or-what-do-we-need-corporations-for-and-how-does-valves-management-structure-fit-into-todays-corporate-world/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cs702</author><text>Great article.  Anyone who has worked for a large, established corporation knows from personal experience that internally they are a lot like the Soviet Union, with a hierarchical structure of bureaucrats and their apparatchiks making decisions for everyone at the company.&lt;p&gt;Despite having grown to around 400 employees, Valve is evidently not like that.  The author, Yanis Varoufakis, makes a compelling case that future companies may look more like it than like the traditional hierarchical corporations of today.&lt;p&gt;--&lt;p&gt;PS. As someone who regularly reads the author&apos;s economics blog at &lt;a href=&quot;http://yanisvaroufakis.eu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://yanisvaroufakis.eu&lt;/a&gt;, finding him on Valve&apos;s corporate blog was the source of quite a bit of cognitive dissonance for me.  (&quot;What the...?  Why is Varoufakis showing up on Valve&apos;s corporate blog?&quot; was my immediate thought.)  I had to do multiple double-takes before it dawned on me that, yes, he somehow works at Valve!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sophacles</author><text>Regarding your PS: Valve hired him as &quot;cheif economist&quot;. This article explains it all:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a-strange-email/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/it-all-began-with-a...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I seem to recall an HN discussion about it, but am too lazy to track it down :).</text></comment>