Semco
Employees set their own salaries and chose their managers. It worked.
Ricardo Semler, Maverick
1993
Ricardo Semler, The Seven-Day Weekend
2003
Ricardo Semler's Brazilian company let employees set pay against open books and market data, choose their hours, and vote on their managers. Management layers went from twelve to three, corporate staff fell by roughly three quarters, and revenue grew from a few million dollars to over 200 million.
Rarely copied and never really disproved, which makes it the most interesting unresolved case in the library. It sits at the far end of the Authority and Incentives cells and is a useful check on anyone claiming a given delegation is impossible. Most of the record comes from Semler's own books.
Which decisions may an agent make alone, and who is able to stop it?
What are people paid for once output is no longer the scarce thing?
What is the smallest unit that can own a customer outcome end to end?