Quote:[SIZE=15px]When a company is small, the politics tend to be minimal since many startups either are completely flat or have little to no hierarchy, everyone gets lots of time with the CEO, and everyone's marginal contribution is massive and easy to detect. In a larger company, the pathways for recognition get clogged. Suddenly the CEO you used to see all the time you only see once in a while. Hierarchy is put in place to try to minimize coordination costs, but suddenly everyone is judging their self-worth against where they're positioned within that org. chart which is inherently a ranking system generally tied to compensation.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=15px]Valve's model has the potential of upending those political costs. There's so little hierarchy that mismatches between internal evaluations and external markers of value or less common. Since the company's surplus is divided up each year based on contributions, theoretically compensation is more closely and efficiently tied to value generation rather than getting out of synch purely based on factors like seniority or tenure.[/SIZE]