And yes, I used this post as an opportunity to rant about managers in a vertically structured company, but I see no reason why the type of manager I prefer could not exist at Zappos. In fact, it seems like it would be more likely to occur, given that they would no longer outrank the creators.
The purpose of the manager is not to squeeze productivity out of a developer as you might blood out of a stone (although some seem to think it is), but to try to make sure that the developers are working on the right stuff for the company. In a healthy organisation, that can be done as part of a dialogue with the developers and takes the form primarily of communication.
For a good developer "what they want to build" in the context of their job is at least somewhat informed by what they think will be valuable for their company. Now, it's completely true that developers might be prone to particular kinds of getting it wrong (let's build a framework!), but that's true for any kind of person including managers.
Point being, managers are there to help make sure that the producers are informed and aligned about the wider context.
In my experience that responsibility has fallen on the CEO or the Product people.
Consider Apple. Apple had a series of CEOs who were unable to stem the slide into bankruptcy. Enter Jobs, who turns a company 90 days from bankruptcy in the biggest corporation in the world. He did this with the same group of employees.
The only thing that changed at Apple was the CEO.
Consider how Microsoft has rather dramatically changed course with the ascension of Nadella, with an equally dramatic effect on the stock price. This is very clearly a result of the CEO changing direction.
Company culture as well flows down from the top, this becomes clear if you've worked for different corporations.
If the CEO doesn't matter, I wonder who would risk $billions in corporate valuation installing some random guy off the street rather than a carefully selected person.
I know plenty of creators that don't want to spend their days blocking and tackling. Most "creators" just want to sit in front of their computers all day getting stuff done. With Holocracy those creators you talk about would assume more responsibilities and can no longer hide behind the servant.
Lastly, why are middle managers always seen in such a poor light? Why isn't a CEO/CFO/CIO seen in a lesser light since they really don't produce anything.