> Sometimes , I think that the zeitgeist has swung too far in favour towards being an entrepreneur instead of working for someone and making something awesome.

I can agree with this. There's definitely some long term, large scale projects that require more coordination than a bunch of disparate groups working together. I doubt the pyramids, the statue of Liberty, or the Empire State Building could have been built that way.

Case study: At Sears, Eddie Lampert's Warring Divisions Model Adds to the Troubles

  Eddie Lampert’s big idea is that markets and competition rool, so
  he’s forcing the different parts of Sears to compete for resources
  just as if they were independent firms, with individual division
  profitability the only criterion for success.

  ...

  If the different divisions of Sears have no common interests,
  if the best model is competition red in tooth and claw, why should
  Sears exist at all? Why not just break it up into units that have
  no reason not to compete?

  For that matter, why should any large firm exist? Why not just have
  small firms, or maybe just individuals, who make deals for whatever
  they need?

  ...

  There are some things you don't want to leave up to the market — the
  market itself is telling us that, by creating islands of
  planning and hierarchy.

More here: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/john-galt-and-th...

And here: http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2013-07-11/at-sears-edd...

My own company works this way. It's absolutely ridiculous. Each division hoards good programmers , projects and expertise, and people sometimes get stuck in other divisions without much work , while a few efficiently managed divisions land all the good work , leading to all the good people in the poor divisons leaving because they aren't growing , it's almost like working in a different company if you're in a different division.

I am a bit mystified as to where people get the idea that competition is fundamentally better than cooperation. The only time competition has ever done any good is when it leads to greater cooperation.

That's not always true. Competition always produces better performance , atleast in individual activities.

Individual activities are precisely not what we're talking about, and at any rate you're wrong even at the level of an individual.

There is huge difference between theory/Theory and practice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomáš_Baťa#Career

In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice they are not.