Wow, my jaw just dropped open. Less that 25 people and 4 levels of management? How can you operate with that much bureaucracy in a small company? Very slowly, I'd imagine.
I go to his boss when I need to discuss technical implications of decisions I'm making for the products. Next layer up is more of a filter between the CEO and the company.
Who works on what comes down directly from CEO.
It's tons of fun.
Edit: my last salary review, 6 people were invited to it (including me).
If there really are four layers of management in a company with 25 employees, that basically means each manager has zero, one or two subordinates. I really cannot see how that could work very well at all.