[Ozzie_osman]

I met my manager when I joined once, then every 6 or 12 months for performance review (which was aggregated feedback from my peers that he took 2 minutes to talk through: "looks like you're doing fine, if you need anything, my EA can schedule more time").

PMs and Engineers made the prioritization decisions.

If someone was severely underperforming, it'd probably take at least 6 months to notice.

Projects would get shut down with very little notice (though I guess that's been a Google constant).

Within two years they had added 3-4 more layers though, after realizing the managers were, after all, needed.

[skeeter2020]

I've never had close to 140 directs (or even friends) but did get close to 40 (direct reports; never had more than a dozen friends or so). Frankly, it sucks. I was (IMO) doing a terrible job, dropping balls everywhere and not serving the people I had a responsibility & emotional commitment to help. It came down to one of: 1. fail at what you truly believe is your job, 2. give up on what you believe, or 3. don't play the game. I picked #3 and quit, but most go with #2 and many are VPs and CEOs today.