A feudalistic remnant in the nature of corporate hierarchy is that people higher up in the hierarchy feel that this gives them inherent superiority over people lower in the hierarchy. In reality, there's no reason that someone in a corporate hierarchy needs to have their status (including compensation, etc.) determined by their place in the hierarchy. A hierarchy should just be an efficient means to organize a group effort, and not a social order.
This assumes they make more money for the sake of their position in the hierarchy rather than having valued skills at performing well at that level of the hierarchy. Believe it or not, most people don’t do well in mgmt positions. To find someone that can perform that job can be harder than finding a good “individual contributor”. I’ve seen plenty of good technical people wash out of even basic supervisory/team lead positions. So I think there is a scarcity element at work.
In practice the CEO is a founder of this company and another successful startup and is a billionaire. I don’t have any reason to think he’s a horrible person or anything, but this one interaction chafed me.
Agreed, and in fairness the fact that it was such a noteworthy experience means that it is rare, at least in my life. For the most part the hierarchy has been just a means to organize a group effort. And even then I prevailed. I think that says a lot about the intervening progress.
Maybe in the absence of any direct incentive, but employees do have a direct incentive: their own salary. What seems more likely to boost employee morale, an executive choosing to pay himself more, or an executive choosing to pay his employees more?
Social hierarchies have their downsides, but if history is a guide, they are necessary. Any behavior that appears in all recorded cultures is likely to be a core survival advantage, and therefore very fundamental to us as humans operationally and unlikely to change.
The arc of human history, especially in the west, has bent toward equality. I think some hierarchy is necessary, but I like how one of the previous comment distinguishes between organizational hierarchies and social (status) hierarchies. I’m not sure the latter are useful at all.
An organizational hierarchy is your reporting structure, e.g,. your boss telling you what to work on. A social status hierarchy is about how society esteems you, i.e., your social capital.
There may be an ounce of truth to that, but the reality is that it mostly has to do with financial incentives related to taxes, to continue having overhead expenses to write off. Talk to most corporate accountants and they may be able to explain the budget and tax implications. What this really is, is a case of that it’s easier to do things the way they always have been done than to have to actually rethink and rework things.
What I’m saying is that this is an IMMENSE opportunity for startups to attract young/emergent talent and possibly even established talent that is prioritizing remote work.
Others are correct, corporate matters are working on how to corral their herds back into their expensive capital investments on prime real estate, even if most people have no clue what’s really going on die the the blinding light of affirmation.
A feudalistic remnant in the nature of corporate hierarchy is that people higher up in the hierarchy feel that this gives them inherent superiority over people lower in the hierarchy. In reality, there's no reason that someone in a corporate hierarchy needs to have their status (including compensation, etc.) determined by their place in the hierarchy. A hierarchy should just be an efficient means to organize a group effort, and not a social order.