One strong argument (maybe the only one) for the concept of controlling superstar players is the reality that they are going to leave, eventually; maybe for a better job, maybe retirement, maybe they get hit by a bus. If your output is entirely dependent on a superstar, it inevitably won't be durable against their departure; one way to look at corporations is through the lens of efficiency maximizers, but another equally valid way of thinking about them is through the lens of durability maximizers. The day-to-day actions of most people inside a corporation is far better pattern-matched toward Survivability, not Efficiency.
Take any company, and grade it (personally!) on both "how ideologically driven is their mission" and "how productive are they"; eight times out of ten it'll correlate. New companies like OpenAI ("we're inventing machine intelligence"; strong ideology/mission); extremely productive. Musk's companies, Tesla and SpaceX, extremely strong, important mission, extremely productive. Some smaller companies like 37Signals, very ideologically/personality driven, very productive. There's even a few big tech companies left, like Cloudflare, that have strong, coherent mission drive ("Building A Better Internet") and have productivity to match it.
One counter-example (and why its, like, eight out of ten): Microsoft. No one has any clue what Microsoft's mission is. That product factory still churns out more new stuff than anyone on the west coast.
Those two paragraphs are 100% connected, because roughly the only way to mitigate (not eliminate) the risk of superstars leaving is high, coherent mission drive. "High" means "its clear, its communicated, its meaningful" and "coherent" means "its practiced, its demonstrated, its genuine". Compensation is another way, but the problems with compensation are (1) you will lose the compensation fight with competitors eventually, (2) it selects for actors that aren't interested in anything except compensation, and (3) it breeds complacency/retirement without simultaneous high+coherent mission drive (Nvidia's problem right now).
Oxide [1] is an interesting case-study in mitigating some negative impacts of high compensation; "Everyone at Oxide makes $201,227 USD, regardless of location."
It just comes down to: Poor Leadership. If the product is boring, if leadership can't coherently communicate mission, direction, value, etc; superstars aren't going to join or stay for very long. Everything else is window dressing. In the absence of that, the most effective way to maintain continuity of operations is normalization and "the bell curve".
Also: If you find yourself believing "well, some companies just don't operate in an area where high mission drive is even possible, not every company is on the bleeding edge of AI CryptoTech", just stop. I don't care what you're doing; building a high, coherent mission is always possible. Amazon's mission is to be the most customer-centric company on the planet. That's a freakin awesome mission that would resonate with a ton of superstars, and its a mission that every damn company could have, if their leadership chooses it and is high quality enough to live it.
I feel its a valid concern, but the way companies generally respond to the concern is what is invalid. Teams should lift everyone up, not push superstars down.
E.g. How much active knowledge sharing on the superstar's domain of expertise, and even process, is happening? A luncheon once a month? Its not enough. How much time is the superstar allowed to spend documenting? Is the rest of the team actually reading it? Is active mentorship happening on the team?
Versus: Create a top-down process, make everyone follow the process, invent hypotheticals as to why the process matters, product factory, etc.
Yes, as I posted further down I am really intrigued by what makes it possible to lift other people up. Because the potential is there. Not in everyone but surely someone who would step up as the new lead if someone disappears.
Documentation is good but sometimes i feel like there is a need for something more.
Maybe the previous guy needs to move out of the way. Maybe his way of doing code reviews is discouraging - how important is it really to do everything like it was wired in his brain? Or just let go of the idea of how the code is structured?
I take mentoring seriously since this is my way of adding force multiplication without having to become a manager.
I use 'hit by a bus' sometimes, it's just a metaphor for leaves abruptly without much notice.
You never know the type of employee and their motives for leaving until they do. Some are excellent and spend two weeks documenting and knowledge sharing. Some take a two week vacation. This point is orthogonal to superstar.
And I am speaking from my experience and yours is different.
Just that I have felt lately that the "hit by a bus" card has been played too often close to me and it makes progress slow down.
And I feel that when it does happen, organizations are much more resilient than the worst case that is often painted.
(Changing subject) I am actually pretty intrigued by case 2A in my post, I have seen this often and sometimes it has been me.
What causes someone to step up and more importantly what prevents them from doing so before? Because it means that many orgnanizations have this as an untapped resource.
What should they do to release that resource earlier?
Take any company, and grade it (personally!) on both "how ideologically driven is their mission" and "how productive are they"; eight times out of ten it'll correlate. New companies like OpenAI ("we're inventing machine intelligence"; strong ideology/mission); extremely productive. Musk's companies, Tesla and SpaceX, extremely strong, important mission, extremely productive. Some smaller companies like 37Signals, very ideologically/personality driven, very productive. There's even a few big tech companies left, like Cloudflare, that have strong, coherent mission drive ("Building A Better Internet") and have productivity to match it.
One counter-example (and why its, like, eight out of ten): Microsoft. No one has any clue what Microsoft's mission is. That product factory still churns out more new stuff than anyone on the west coast.
Those two paragraphs are 100% connected, because roughly the only way to mitigate (not eliminate) the risk of superstars leaving is high, coherent mission drive. "High" means "its clear, its communicated, its meaningful" and "coherent" means "its practiced, its demonstrated, its genuine". Compensation is another way, but the problems with compensation are (1) you will lose the compensation fight with competitors eventually, (2) it selects for actors that aren't interested in anything except compensation, and (3) it breeds complacency/retirement without simultaneous high+coherent mission drive (Nvidia's problem right now).
Oxide [1] is an interesting case-study in mitigating some negative impacts of high compensation; "Everyone at Oxide makes $201,227 USD, regardless of location."
It just comes down to: Poor Leadership. If the product is boring, if leadership can't coherently communicate mission, direction, value, etc; superstars aren't going to join or stay for very long. Everything else is window dressing. In the absence of that, the most effective way to maintain continuity of operations is normalization and "the bell curve".
Also: If you find yourself believing "well, some companies just don't operate in an area where high mission drive is even possible, not every company is on the bleeding edge of AI CryptoTech", just stop. I don't care what you're doing; building a high, coherent mission is always possible. Amazon's mission is to be the most customer-centric company on the planet. That's a freakin awesome mission that would resonate with a ton of superstars, and its a mission that every damn company could have, if their leadership chooses it and is high quality enough to live it.
[1] https://oxide.computer/careers