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Author: Pablo Arriazu
Date:  
To: unsystem
Subject: Re: [unSYSTEM] life at valve: A Billion Dollar Company With No Bosses
I've said it's interesting and that it's worth reading the book, not
that it's like a bible :D. Of course, valve is "a billion dollar
company" because they have used creepy ways to "defend IP". I completly
understand your possition.

I have to accept that it's very difficult for me to agree with
everything I read in any book or article, and I found quite interesting
when this one speaks about horizontal and distributed management, and
how developers have 100% of their time free to chose whatever they want
to do, being able to self-organize to create projects without "bosses"
or supervisors, just spontaneus commisions.

Besides, world is complex and changes in many ways and from many
perspectives, and I see this one as just one of the ruptures of the old
corporativism. In a similar way that I found interesting Mondragon
Cooperative Corporation when I was younger -btw, it's not interesting at
all-.

For me, it's quite funny that they speak about their control of their IP
as if it were the "means of production" or something equivalent in
empowerment.







El 05/01/14 13:53, Mike Gogulski escribió:
> Hi Pablo. No, I stopped here:
>
>      Valve owns its intellectual property. This is far from the
>      norm, in our industry or at most entertainment content-
>      producing companies. We didn't always own it all. But
>      thanks to some legal wrangling with our first publisher
>      after Half-Life shipped, we now do. This has freed us to
>      make our own decisions about our products.

>
> I'm sure that it's all spiff to work there and stuff, but the fact that
> IP is mentioned /exactly once/ without any criticism at all in this
> corp-slave non-manifesto is enough to put me off my breakfast.
>
>
>
> On 01/05/2014 12:04 PM, Pablo Arriazu wrote:
>> Have you read the "valve's handbook for new employers"?
>> http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf
>>
>>
>> El 05/01/14 07:19, Mike Gogulski escribió:
>>> How many IP lawyers do they employ?
>> Well, that's true. And I'm sure this amazing working structure doesn't
>> apply for cleaning people, maintenance guys, etc. But it deserves a
>> reading.
>>
>>
>> btw, I'm Pablo and I've been a "lurker" for about three or four weeks
>> and here I've found people that has very close perspectives to mine,
>> so... hello!, I promise I will prepare a small introduction in other
>> moment :D
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 01/04/2014 10:32 PM, Amir Taaki wrote:
>>>> http://www.inc.com/samuel-wagreich/the-4-billion-company-with-no-bosses.html
>>>>
>>>> "The most astonishing aspect of life at Valve is that there are no
>>>> bosses," said Varoufakis, an economist from the University of Athens with
>>>> notable publications on the Euro Crisis. "It contains no explicit
>>>> hierarchy. It's based on what several members of the company have
>>>> described to me as the principles of anarcho-syndicalism. Effectively,
>>>> free association of employees with one another."
>>>>
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>
>
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