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keithpeter

"Firings, while relatively rare, work the same way: teams decide together if someone isn't working out."

Wonder if that kind of 'firing' ends up in court?

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Why would it?

The reasons for firing someone can be documented just as well by a team as by an individual.

And remember, these are US companies, so employment is at-will.

Yes, I'm in the UK. Forget about mob sackings, would not last a second at a tribunal.

But, in the US are there not even civil remedies? Could someone claim 'mob rule' or 'whispering campaign'?

In the US, you have protections if you have a union contract. Otherwise, you pretty much need to be considered a protected class (varies by state), and your sacking was related to your class status.

Forget about the legal risks; how does that even work? If I don't think my coworker is doing a good job, am I supposed to secretly whip up enough votes to have them fired?

In my experience, it generally becomes clear to everyone if someone is really not working out, and it's already been the subject of hushed conversation.

If you need to "whip up votes", this will say more about you than the person you think isn't doing a good job.

Borderline cases are trickier, but they are for managers too.

I guess so. But I really think this scenario is better for everyone involved if the employee in question has a single boss.

And of course there always is a single boss even if this fact is hidden; in the case of Valve it's presumably gaben, who owns the majority of the company and must presumably be the final arbiter of everything that happens.

I can only assume that the actual firing process involves a lot of hushed talking followed by an approach to gaben followed by a discussion followed by a "sorry, bye".

One could in fact suggest that the flat management structure only works when there is exactly one clear owner of the company. Everyone can pretend that everyone gets a say, when it's clear to everyone who really has the final say.

The only time that a "single boss" would know better than the team would be if the single boss was as knowledgeable about the development process as the team was, and knew that the team was, for some reason, cooking up a conspiracy to fire a certain employee who didn't deserve it. Probably pretty rare, especially compared to the number of people who get let go because they just didn't click with their supervisor.

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