pretty sure that if I ever started a company, I'd at least try to do it without any sort of formal management.
Valve does that:
How could a 300-person company not have any formal
management? My observation is that it takes new hires
about six months before they fully accept that no one is
going to tell them what to do, that no manager is going
to give them a review, that there is no such thing as a
promotion or a job title or even a fixed role (although
there are generous raises and bonuses based on value to
the company, as assessed by peers). That it is their
responsibility, and theirs alone, to allocate the most
valuable resource in the company – their time – by
figuring out what it is that they can do that is most
valuable for the company, and then to go do it. That if
they decide that they should be doing something
different, there’s no manager to convince to let them
go; they just move their desk to the new group (the
desks are on wheels, with computers attached) and start
in on the new thing. (Obviously they should choose a
good point at which to do this, and coordinate with both
groups, but that’s common sense, not a rule, and isn’t
enforced in any way.) That everyone on a project team is
an individual contributor, doing coding, artwork, level
design, music, and so on, including the leads; there is
no such thing as a pure management or architect or
designer role. That any part of the company can change
direction instantly at any time, because there are no
managers to cling to their people and their territory,
no reorgs to plan, no budgets to work around. That there
are things that Gabe badly wants the company to do that
aren’t happening, because no one has signed up to do
them.