What surprised me most about Spotify, Airbnb, and Zappos is that all three companies are trying to solve the same problem, but they trust very different people to make decisions.
At Spotify, a lot of that trust is placed directly in the team. Spotify still organizes much of its R&D work around squads, and in 2025 the company said about 700 R&D squads were using its internal Backstage platform. The PM helps shape priorities and understand the user problem, but engineers and designers are also expected to have real input into what gets built (Spotify Engineering, 2025).
Airbnb feels almost like the opposite. Brian Chesky has described moving the company toward one roadmap and a more centralized functional structure. He also pushed design higher in the decision-making process and reduced the number of projects teams were working on. In this setup, PMs can still influence the product, but the overall direction comes much more clearly from senior leadership (Figma, 2023).
Zappos went in a completely different direction with Holacracy. Instead of giving authority mainly to managers, the company distributed responsibility across specific roles and circles. In theory, this gave employees more ownership, but the system also became known for having a lot of process and role complexity (Forbes, 2025).
Personally, I would choose Spotify. I like the idea of working somewhere where the PM has influence without having to control every decision. I would rather be part of a team where people can disagree, bring different perspectives, and still build something together.
I submitted this assignment late because I enrolled in the course late and did not initially have editor access. Thank you for understanding.