And it's worth noting that Graham is working on creating alternatives (coughycombinatorcough), so your grumping seems a little out of place.
The jury is still out on that one. The trend lately has been in the other direction.
For example right now a duo are preparing to do a manned space flight, which would have been unthinkable 30 years ago.
2 of them are described as "Lead" which is contrary to the point you want to make: "You Weren't Meant to Have a Boss."
Additionally the problem of putting someone in space is different from putting someone on the moon and back again.
I find myself thinking of SpaceX, which is tackling a real challenge and "big problem". They have, according to Wikipedia, more than 1250 employees.
That, along with the trend of software being used to solve more and more problems (more stuff is being solved by computers), it would seem like that eventually, even something like spending people to space would only take a small team, as infeasible as that seems right now.
To farmers of yore, it would seem laughable that we are able to produce a lot of food with so little farms. To builders of yore (like pyramids), it seems laughable that we're able to build taller buildings with much less people.
Given that technology and pace of innovation keeps accelerating, we should be able to solve larger class of problems with less effort and less man power.
Taking this trend to it's extreme , when we have human equivalent robots and AI , one man could build anything he wants by commanding machines to do the work.
Obviously false. You write via the Internet, which from the beginning has been created collaboratively, not hierarchically. (The big organization of the time, AT&T, refused to participate. See "When Wizards Stay Up Late" for the history.) I read your comment via a Linux box. My OS was started by one guy and has been built up by a lot of individual voluntary contributors.
The pyramids are a great example of what's wrong with bosses. For each pyramid, hundreds of thousands of people worked for years so a rich tyrant could impress people and feel better about dying.
First off, it's hard to play good cop, bad cop to get someone to change their mind if someone isn't willing to play the bad cop.
Second, my boss has been at the company a number of years, and so can tell me what my sponsor is going to be looking for, and any political landmines I might run into.
Lastly, my boss is the one who goes toe to toe with upper management to get the raise that he thinks I deserve, not just the default raise.
And I don't think anyone would question the usefulness of "general politics person" and "general team sanity person". The problem is, the roles are convoluted with "the ruler," and the question is, is "the ruler" really necessary, and even if the ruler is necessary, is this really the same person as the "sanity" and "politics" people.
What are the unique advantages of having a boss?