Elon Musk runs multiple complex organisations with significantly fewer middle managers than traditional competitors. Love him or hate him, there's something worth understanding here.

SpaceX builds rockets with a fraction of the management overhead that NASA contractors require. Tesla scaled faster than any automotive company in history with an organisational structure that defies conventional wisdom.

How do they coordinate without the usual layers of management?

In this episode, I explore how mission-driven alignment can replace hierarchical coordination. When everyone understands the goal with crystal clarity—put humans on Mars, accelerate sustainable energy—you need less management overhead to keep people moving in the same direction.

I examine:→ Why clarity of mission reduces coordination costs→ The first principles thinking that eliminates unnecessary process→ Flat hierarchies and direct communication across levels→ The "work wherever you're needed" culture that replaces rigid role boundaries→ The very real human costs of this approach—and why it's not a model to copy blindly→ What traditional organisations can learn without adopting the extremes

Mission as coordination mechanism isn't about working people to exhaustion. It's about alignment so strong that coordination becomes almost automatic.

The question for your organisation: is your mission clear enough to coordinate?

🎧 Available now on Spotify and all major platforms.

Linux is one of the most complex software systems ever built. Over twenty thousand developers have contributed to it. In a single year, more than four thousand developers submit changes across thousands of companies and every continent.

And there's no project manager. No Gantt charts. No status meetings. No resource allocation spreadsheets.

How is this possible?

In this episode, I explore how GitHub turned coordination into infrastructure. The platform doesn't just store code—it replaces the project manager entirely for routine coordination.

I break down:→ How issues, pull requests, and automated tests eliminate coordination overhead→ The Kubernetes example: bots doing the work of dozens of project managers→ A real case study: a PMO reduced from twelve people to four→ The principle that applies beyond software: work in systems can be coordinated by systems→ What remains for humans when platforms handle the routine

The GitHub model shows us the future. Platform handles the routine. Humans handle the exceptional. Platform provides visibility. Humans provide judgment.

This isn't about making humans obsolete. It's about making humans more valuable.

🎧 Available now on Spotify and all major platforms.

In 2012, Zhang Ruimin fired ten thousand middle managers. Not because Haier was failing—because he saw where the future was heading.

Today, Haier is the world's largest appliance maker. Inside it operate over four thousand micro-enterprises, each functioning like an independent startup. No traditional hierarchy. No central coordination bureaucracy. Just small teams competing and collaborating simultaneously.

This episode tells that remarkable story.

I explore:→ The burning platform: why Zhang dismantled a structure that was already working→ Micro-enterprises: how teams of ten to fifteen people operate with full profit and loss responsibility→ The internal market: how micro-enterprises buy and sell services to each other→ Rendanheyi: the philosophy of zero distance between employees and customers→ What happened to the ten thousand middle managers (it's not what you'd expect)

Haier proves that radical decentralization works at massive scale—eighty thousand employees across multiple continents, coordinating without traditional project management.

If Netflix shows that tech companies can operate differently, Haier shows that manufacturing giants can too. No industry is exempt from this transformation.

The coordination tax isn't inevitable. Haier stopped paying it.

🎧 Available now on Spotify and all major platforms.