I am progressive enough to love all the things people are changing up in the business world to make things better. I am also conservative enough to be somewhat dubious that things that sound awesome are actually awesome. Usually (but not always) things are the way they are because other things have been tried and this was the optimum solution found at the time. Many times we forget the initial experiments and start fresh without learning from all the work that went on before. This can both be a good thing and a bad thing.

My point is that as readers we should be careful. We need to distinguish between stories that tell us things we are predisposed to like and things that actually work. Daniel (swombat) has done a great job of sharing some personal experiences. I say let us let the real world decide. If we can all work from the beach in a transparent organization where there are no bosses? Freaking count me in on some of that action. But either it works or it doesn't. A few stories here or there about small companies trying new things is more of a fun read than anything else.

Good luck to all these experiments, though. With so many cool things being tried, I expect to see some great results over the next few years as the marketplace sorts out the efficient business ideas from the popular ones. Really cool times ahead!