[niravshah]

I wonder if the author considers the work environment and culture he describes as inherently unscalable and also unprofitable. One could imagine a workplace that maintains this kind of ethos while also making money but while remaining small (EDIT: 37 Signals is a possible example). I think it is an open question as to whether an organization can be all three - large, profitable, and 'a basement', to use the metaphor.

[ekanes]

Great point, but as a general rule what you don't see in the wild is probably not possible for some reason. I would wager that since increasing growth requires increasing bureaucracy, there's your culprit.

[sukilot]

It's also possible that big orgd are big because they overshoot their optimum riding a rocket of early profit, and slowly colldose under their own gravity to chase ever marginal returns.

Is Larry Page getting richer at 50000 Employees that he was at 10K?