And yes, I used this post as an opportunity to rant about managers in a vertically structured company, but I see no reason why the type of manager I prefer could not exist at Zappos. In fact, it seems like it would be more likely to occur, given that they would no longer outrank the creators.
The purpose of the manager is not to squeeze productivity out of a developer as you might blood out of a stone (although some seem to think it is), but to try to make sure that the developers are working on the right stuff for the company. In a healthy organisation, that can be done as part of a dialogue with the developers and takes the form primarily of communication.
In my experience that responsibility has fallen on the CEO or the Product people.
For a good developer "what they want to build" in the context of their job is at least somewhat informed by what they think will be valuable for their company. Now, it's completely true that developers might be prone to particular kinds of getting it wrong (let's build a framework!), but that's true for any kind of person including managers.
Point being, managers are there to help make sure that the producers are informed and aligned about the wider context.