This comment rather flippantly elides that what it means to be in and out in different organizations varies tremendously.

With a healthy corporate culture, being "in" means respecting your co-workers and meeting clearly-laid out expectations.

In a toxic one, it corresponds with social connection, cultural identity, obscuring expectations (and rewards) and zero-sum empire building.

I think what really galls people is the hypocrisy. The flat hierarchy turns out to just be a feint to mask screwing people. If the first rule is "everyone is equal" then you can never complain about inequality because that's impossible, everyone knows that goes against the first rule.

Yes. Disgruntled employees leave companies all the time. Yet when one leaves Valve it's because their organisational structure doesn't work, not just that that person wasn't a good fit for the company. Meanwhile Valve probably can't hear what people outside are saying over the noise of their money-printing machine.

I really don't understand how criticisms get so much attention, when it's nothing close to a constructive study. It's just some unhappy employee's porthole and it seems to be too successful to dismiss.

> seems to be too successful to dismiss

...Or that it worked just well enough while they were creating a platform that set them up as a gatekeeper and quasi-manopoly, and works just well enough to maintain it.

Were they actually a flat organization during the development of Half-Life 2 and Steam? I had assumed Gabe stepped back from his authority some time during the development of the Half-Life Episodes. If I had to guess, the transition began some time in late '05 and progressed over the next few years. Just a guess, though.

That us not true. Companies can vlbe more or less anxiety inducing, more or less pleast places to be in and more or less fair. They can be good place for social manipulators or for the rest of people. They can be overworking people or be sleepy.

It is useful to be able to talk about those differences. What people have in mind here is that Valve is way more anxiety inducing then average company.

Politics in traditional companies are accountable and pretty well understood.

You report to your boss who reports to their boss and so forth. Authority is decided based on your title which is largely determined once at interview time. As is your compensation structure which almost never has bonuses being a significant percentage of the total package.