Brain of the firm
Explore Brain of the firm by Stafford Beer: 17 Hacker News mentions from 12 participants in 2007-02-22–2026-11-01. Read original excerpts, compare opinions and save this book.
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Read on Hacker NewsPaul, you should read some Stafford Beer - Brain of the Firm would be a good start. He replaces your sentiment: "each person gets freedom of action in inverse proportion to the size of the entire tree" With a theorem that states that the amount of freedom of each person is in principle a computable function of the purpose of the organization. Beer describes how organizations could be run using a model called the Viable System Model, which he hypothesises is not only sufficient but also necessary. Large organizations do in fact seem to inhibit freedom to their own detriment, but in Beer's view this is not an inevitable outcome of large organizations, it is simply a failure to properly design them. Anyway, I highly recommend his stuff. Brain of the Firm describes his main theory, while Decision and Control is a fantastic voyage through his …
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