If you’re working in a big group, you’re fighting human nature | Hacker News Reader

If you’re working in a big group, you’re fighting human nature

37signals.com

10 pointsjmorin00711 comments

didn't pg write an essay on this? or at least is was a major part of one of his essays?

At least he gathered some new quotes and anecdotal evidence. I particularly like the "two-pizza" reference.

I enjoyed it enough to add here, for those with out time.

I believe both Apple and Amazon (two companies I respect a lot for their version 1.0s) talk about “two-pizza teams” — that is, keeping the team small enough that it can be fed with two pizzas…If the company that made the iPod believes in a two-pizza team, how can you justify putting 90 people in the room?

If the company that made the iPod has a founder who wears a black mock turtleneck, how can you justify not wearing one?

Because the company doesn't believe that is the black mock turtleneck that is going to work on the product.

(Completely off topic, but "real" pizzas, in Italy, are one per person).

Actually, that's a valid point. "Two-pizza team" could mean 2-5 people depending on how much pizza that really is and how hungry your teammates are.

Anyone who ate lunch at startup school knows this quite well :)

Some time ago I wrote to PG about this very subject:

Paul Graham wrote: | Thanks, John. Dunbar's number is more about the size of societies than | the size of a group that can cooperate to complete a task. There the number | is more like 8-12, which I believe prob corresponds to the smallest unit | in an army.

Not sure the army is the best analogy since they operate with large amounts of funding and not the same restraints as a start up. Terror organizations are a better analogy since they have to combine team effectiveness with minimal size (for security and finance reasons). This seems a lot like a start up that needs an effective team of the smallest size (for mostly finance reasons).

For example, the IRA was divided into 6 to 8 man operational units.

FWIW, the smallest US infantry unit is the fireteam, comprised of 4 men. I think it's 2 fireteams to a squad.

Sounds like a 2-pizza outfit to me.

The army examples don't mean a lot imo. They have unit sizes across a lot of different scales, so it's not significant that some happen to fall into this range.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com