> It was only a matter of time when all MegaCorp problems will eventually plague Google.

this is really interesting - what is the cause of all these problems?

Is it inherent in a hierarchical organization? Is it because you have people who are responsible for the output of others (a manager), but isn't able to actually control that output directly, but is only able to indirectly affect it (and not very well at that)?

I think this issue of "control" is central. Facebook and valve seems to have their structure right (at least, the engineering department). But both is still young and small.

Open allocation seems to have one drawback. You still do need (a few) managers and executives (not to order people around, but to keep track of the bigger picture) but it's hard to hire managers from outside into an open-allocation shop because typically they want promises of authority, and OA is directed through leadership rather than intimidation.

Most companies move toward the closed-allocation end of the spectrum because they perceive a need to do so in executive recruiting. Most executives don't want to take a position where they won't have the power to unilaterally fire people.

Regrettably rhetorical question: And this is not a useful filtering function for most of the executives you'd want to hire?

A company must be able to fire people (I've been in ones that went down the drain because the founders were too nice to do this, or at least do it soon enough), but this sure sounds like Lord Acton's "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely."

+1, This problem is not unique to Google.