I’d probably choose Spotify out of these three, mostly because I’d want some say in what my team builds while still having people around me who can push back.
In Spotify’s classic model, small teams called squads focus on particular parts of the product, and related squads form tribes. The product owner, who fills a role similar to a PM, works with the squad and decides which work takes priority. They also coordinate with other product owners so the teams are heading in the same direction. They don’t control everything, though: the team decides how to build, and chapter leads manage people.
Airbnb is more centralized. Employees are grouped by function, like design or engineering, and Brian Chesky and senior leaders make the major decisions across a shared roadmap. Product management is combined with product marketing, so PMs think about both what customers need and how to communicate the product’s value. They still shape what gets built, but design has an equally strong voice, and PMs have to work through influence rather than having their own team to direct.
With Zappos’s holacracy model, people work in circles and have specific roles that define what they can decide. Lead links set priorities, but decisions within each role belong to the person holding it. A PM’s authority depends on those responsibilities, so their title alone doesn’t let them overrule someone else.
Spotify appeals to me because I’d want to follow an idea from a conversation with a user through to testing it. I’d enjoy learning from Airbnb’s designers, but I’d probably get frustrated if too many decisions needed senior leadership involved. With Zappos, I’d want to understand how disagreements between roles actually get resolved before choosing to work that way.
