He doesn't name the company in question, but it doesn't take any stretching to figure out who he's talking about in cases.
The Nightmare of Valve’s self-organizing “utopia”
How Valve’s perfect work culture turned into a toxic bully’s yard and what it tells us about “flat hierarchy” workplaces.
Replit’s CEO on building a company that can run itself
Amjad Masad on the "self-driving company," why a CEO is a glorified router, and what's left for humans when agents do the work
The Future is NOT Self-Hosted
In a world where corporations have detached buying from owning, one man attempts to do something radical: build his own cloud.
Gabe Newell: On Productivity, Economics, Political Institutions, and the Future of Corporations
The Corporation’s Neoliberal Soul? | Human Rights after Corporate Personhood
Human Rights after Corporate Personhood offers a rich overview of current debates, and seeks to transcend the "outrage response" often found in public discourse and corporate legal theory. Through ...
The Fractal Organization
The world of management is in crisis - the old remedies no longer work and organizations are failing at an increasing rate. Although many talk of 'joined up thinking', few offer practical guidance on how to achieve this in organizations. <b><i>The Fractal Organization</i></b> sets down the practical implications of a well tested systemic approach to building organizations that are capable of surviving and flourishing in these turbulent times. <p>"An excellent read…Many organizations fail at the mercy of their own ignorance. The author has done an excellent job in making ‘the science of effective organization’ accessible to management, providing them with a new knowledge to deal with the uncertainties that the markets place upon them."<br /><b>Stephen J. Brewis, Business Architect, British Telecom</b></p> <p>"...one of the most interesting, thorough and rigorous guides to management that I have ever read, … introduces new insights in every chapter… carries a credibility which acts as a counterbalance to the sometimes difficult message which he conveys which is that a lot of mainstream management practice is at best ineffective and at worst downright destructive. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in management or systems thinking."<br /><b>Penny Marrington</b>, <b>Course Chair, Systems Group, Open University</b></p> <p>"In my opinion this book manages to present sound academic theory that is relevant and helpful to the practitioner in the business. I experienced several A-HA moments."<br /><b>Pauline Marsh, Strategy Director, CS&S International, BAE SYSTEMS</b></p> <p>"The insights of the Viable System Model have been open only to a select few for much too long. Hoverstadt has gone furthest in bringing these ideas to a wider audience…Management books have too often been serious but not practical, or practical but not serious. This book is both brilliantly serious and practical, and often entertaining too."<br /><b>Professor Peter Kawalak, Manchester Business School</b></p> <p>"Integrates mainstream management ideas with the systems ideas underpinning the VSM, and flows and reads well. As a starting point for developing understanding of the VSM in today's world this book improves greatly on all books that have gone before, I would certainly recommend it to colleagues, clients, and students."<br /><b>Dr. Robin Asby, Course Chair, Communication and Systems, Open University</b></p>
THEY WILL REPLACE U.S.: AI AND THE HALLUCINATIONS OF CORPORATIONS
ABSTRACT: I address AI as a manifestation of the corporate form in U.S. culture, and as it relates to the dreams of (or ascribed to) fascism and corporations. The merger of state and corporate power represents the trajectory of the corporation—to take over the state; elide accountability, empathy, transparency and (human) agency; and trade places with (and finally eliminate) people. The merger of state and corporate AI—a final stage of corporate speech, networking, and legal ontology—facilitates the takeover of human personhood by corporate personhood, and I trace the effects of that process in the systemic inversion of norms. Corporate personhood is part of a zero-sum game in which rights, speech, and identities are appropriated from people. When AI technology is grafted onto political systems and social media, the ensuing hallucinations are nightmares. The corporation always has been a posthuman simulacrum of persons, and its AI, in its wake, dreams of eliminating workers and people altogether.
Corporate Bungling And Political Scandal Abound In Jesse Eisinger's New Book
Why don't crooked corporate CEO's go to jail anymore? Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jesse Eisinger uncovers culture of cowardice, incompetence, and corruption in both government and finance.
OpenAI Employees Say Firm’s Chief Scientist Has Been Making Strange Spiritual Claims
OpenAI chief scientist and board member Ilya Sutskever reportedly likes to burn effigies and lead ritualistic chants at the company.
Multiple Identities Reveal Ties Between Chinese Businessman and Alleged Cambodian ‘Criminal’ Conglomerate
The U.S. sanctioned “Chen Xiao’er” for his partnership in one firm with the head of a Cambodian corporate group that allegedly ran cyber-scam operations. Reporters have now uncovered his other identities — and they show deeper connections to the conglomerate.
Inside Larry Ellison's Wide Web of Power, Money and Politics
The $200 billion software titan has suctioned himself to many hubs of influence—from data centers to TikTok to Hollywood studios to the Oval Office itself. Tom Dotan dives deep into Ellison’s kingdom, starting on the island enclave of Lanai.
OpenAI Says It’s Not Responsible for the Leading the Future Super PAC. But Only Its Employees Seem to Believe That. — LessWrong
This is the full text of a post first published on Obsolete, a Substack that I write about the political economy of AI. I’m a freelance journalist an…
Former Reddit CEO: Content Moderation Teams Don’t Care About Your Politics, They Just Want You To Stop Being A Jerk
Last week, about the same time I posted by giant post on all the things that Elon Musk didn’t understand about content moderation, former Reddit CEO Yishan Wong posted a really long, but comp…
Incorruptible
Instant New York Times Bestseller "Incorruptible by Eric Ries is the best and most important business book of the year." —Dan Heath, NYT Bestselling Author & Podcast Host of "What It's Like To Be..." A Thinkers50 Best New Management Book | A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read From Eric Ries, creator of The Lean Startup, comes a bold and urgently needed rethink of how organizations are built—and why success itself so often turns companies against the people and principles that made them worth building in the first place. For decades, we've explained corporate corruption as a problem of bad actors, moral weakness, or isolated scandals. But that story doesn't match reality. Again and again, companies founded with strong ideals drift toward short-term thinking, extractive behavior, and mission abandonment—often despite the best intentions of the people inside them. Incorruptible argues that this failure is not primarily ethical. It is structural. As organizations grow, the systems that govern them—ownership, incentives, charters, accountability, and decision-making—quietly reshape behavior. When those systems are poorly designed, even principled leaders are pushed toward outcomes they never wanted. Success itself becomes a form of financial gravity, bending companies away from their original purpose. Drawing on two decades of work with founders, CEOs, investors, and institution builders, Ries shows how these failures arise predictably—and how they can be prevented. He reframes corporate governance not as bureaucracy or compliance, but as a creative and strategic act at the heart of building enduring, mission-controlled companies. At a moment when trust in business is eroding, Incorruptible offers a clear-eyed diagnosis and a practical blueprint for change. Success alone will not protect what matters most. Only incorruptible design can. Get more information and bonus materials at incorruptible.co.
Here Comes Everybody (book)
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations is a book by Clay Shirky published by Penguin Press in 2008 on the effect of the Internet on modern group dynamics and organization. The author considers examples such as Wikipedia, MySpace, and other social media in his analysis. According to Shirky, the book is about "what happens when people are given the tools to do things together, without needing traditional organizational structures". The title of the work alludes to HCE, a recurring and central figure in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake and considers the impacts of self-organizing movements on culture, politics, and business.
