I can't tell if it's brave of Zappos to experiment with different company structures, or foolish. I can't imagine this holocracy thing working long term. It's a system, which means it can be exploited. Favoritism is one way. Besides, saying that everyone is equal just means that there is no explicitly defined power dynamic. Don't be fooled: just because you are told that as a brand new employee you are equal to the senior-most team member who is also the "team link" or whatever, you are in fact not. It's just that this way the person who is actually more powerful in the organization to you will have to exercise that power differently. Then again, the "normal" corporate structure is less than ideal, to put it generously. Perhaps we need this type of innovation. Personally, I wouldn't bet my whole business on it, instead maybe having a small subset of the company doing these types of experiments.

What I do know for sure is this: I have never been a Zappos customer and am not planning on it. All these experiments seem to be leaving them with prices that are just much higher than alternatives. Even their parent company, Amazon, often has better prices on similar products.