> Gore-tex uses open allocation and is large (almost 10,000 employees, if I recall correctly).

Thanks for the tip on Gore-tex, hadn't heard about them.

> What I don't think OA can survive is too-rapid growth. I think it can scale to thousands of employees. I don't think it can tolerate personnel growth at the 100-150%/year levels that VCs want to see.

So the important thing is to ensure that there remains a solid core of staff of an influential enough size that understands the open allocation process/culture in order to successfully orient new comers arriving at a reasonable pace. That's potentially quite an interesting insight, I'll remember that one.