A large company that doesn't limit freedom

I agree with Paul Graham's recent post on how large companies restrict freedom. His model of how it happens is interesting: as orders flow downwards through the tree, freedom is partitioned at every node. But does it follow that large companies must have this flaw? Only if you assume that management's job is to send orders downwards.

Google has tried to create a culture where management nurtures initiatives from below, to notable success. But this is only for engineers and only some of the time. The carrot they dangle is that you'll get to control 20% of your time at work. One-fifth!

Semco, described in the link, weeds out command-and-control wherever and whenever it crops up in the organization, and replaces it with free choice and shared self-interest.

And have you ever heard of a large company that has no IT policies whatsoever, other than protecting worker email privacy?

http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Expert-Voices/Ricardo-Semler-S...