

Steve Smith On Optimizing For Happiness - bscofield
http://www.ngenworks.com/blog/steve-smith-on-optimizing-for-happiness

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dpweb
This is probably the greatest endorsement for working at a company I've ever
seen. Working @ Github must be great.

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wubbfindel
I do like the idea of a "flat" team/company - but I'm finding it hard to see
how it would work with a company that does work for other clients. Clients
expect deadlines, and progress reports and so on. How do you handle that
without a project manager to keep things on track?

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wsc981
I guess that's the difference in being a product company vs a service company.
A service company might not have that kind of luxury I agree.

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wubbfindel
I've been thinking about it and wondering if it could work for service
company. Possibly it would if the clients also bought into how things are
done.

Maybe the starting point for this would be if the whole team is involved in
the process of vetting the clients and choosing the projects.

If enough people on the team are interested enough to make it work, then they
will be motivated enough to please the client, agree to time scales, budget
and all that sort of thing.

But, in all honesty, I'm not sure. You would have to be a company that
everyone wants to use, so that you would have enough potential clients
'bidding' to be actual clients.

If this was possible, I would love to do it!

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ngenworks
That's exactly right. At nGen Works we're working everyday to be a flat
service company. We recently published out process so others can learn from
our successes and mistakes. It's human nature to chase that which retreats
from us. When you tell a prospect the team has to select them it turns the
traditional model on it's head. Some prospects laugh and walk away. Others
understand that they will get a passionate team that cares about their goals.

You can access our process wiki here. Check out the New Biz section (Phase
Zero). <http://process.ngenworks.com>

Also, here is a video on our model. [http://www.ngenworks.com/blog/the-
jellyfish-model-a-video-su...](http://www.ngenworks.com/blog/the-jellyfish-
model-a-video-summary/)

We're also working on a site that will be a resource for other service
companies looking to go flat.

So far, being a service company going flat hasn't been easy, but we are seeing
positive cultural and bottom line results. The toughest part is getting
through the fear that it won't work.

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wubbfindel
Interesting. Thanks, I'll look into that.

I kind of makes me happy that my thoughts are in line with what people are
actually trying.

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jgautsch
I'm a student at Notre Dame (in South Bend) and Steve actually came and spoke
to our computer club a little while back. I ended up talking to him for a good
long time afterwards about everything from business to software to Github to
working remotely. Pretty cool then to see an interview with him on the front
page of HN.

One thing that was kinda cool was that Github's interview process isn't
necessarily so technical, because they usually find out if someone is a good
programmer by just looking at their Github, and having popular repos sometimes
catches their attention. Also, all new employees push to the master Github
branch on their first day IIRC.

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jonahkagan
Does anybody know of other flat companies? I've heard Valve is somewhat like
this. What about outside of the software industry?

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SatvikBeri
Gore & Associates[0] is the canonical example. Flat structure with 9,000
employees, and consistently rated one of the best places to work.

[0]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WL_Gore_and_Associates>

