After doing some research, it seems like Spotify and Airbnb have quite opposite approaches to PMing, while the Zappos halocracy is kind of its own unique model. Spotify’s approach seems a lot more team-oriented, with product managers, but also the engineers owning the process of some new product change. The company leadership might set the vision or direction, but the PM chooses how to fix it, and the engineers choose the technical implementations. At Airbnb, it seems like there’s one universal roadmap, and it’s really decided by Brian Chesky, and then everyone kind of just follows him as the “leader of all things”. This has clearly worked for Airbnb, and maybe Brian Chesky is a unique person. This has clearly worked for Airbnb in large part probably because Brian Chesky is a unique person. At Zappos, the work is more distributed/diverse in the sense that people own roles and At Zappos, the work is more distributed/diverse in the sense that people are organized into roles and product without a traditional management hierarchy. I kind of like this because it strikes me as following a bit of the jobs-to-be-done framework, where it seems like employees are just expected to own the jobs that they own and do a good job. I think at the end of the day, I would choose Spotify because the mini product team of squads and tribes seems the most like a mini company to me. Realistically, I want to start a company someday, and I think I’d learn the most about how to run and manage a team where I have my own individual opinions, wants, and needs, but so do the people I’m working with. I don’t like the idea of being in a place where I’m just ordering people around, but I also don’t like the idea of being in a place that’s just totally wishy-washy, and there is no hierarchy. I think when I start my company, I want there to be a healthy balance between hierarchy and autonomy, which strikes me as the most aligned with Spotify.
