“Collaboration” is bullshit
A polemic arguing that “collaboration” is mostly empty corporate theater prompts a broader examination of when teamwork actually helps or hurts complex work. Commenters distinguish shallow process-heavy “collaboration” (standups, Jira, visibility reporting, design-by-committee) from small, high-agency teams with clear ownership and accountability, which they see as essential for big projects. Many attribute failures not to collaboration itself but to bad incentives, bloated team sizes, and managers who prioritize optics and deadlines over clear responsibility, technical competence, and thoughtful organizational design.
Scope of Critique: “Collaboration” vs Collaboration Theatre
- Many commenters read the essay as attacking “collaboration-as-ideology” and process theater, not genuine teamwork.
- Distinction drawn between collaboration as support for high-agency ownership vs collaboration as the primary “work” of an organization.
- Some think the author overgeneralizes from bad corporate experiences and comes across as deeply cynical or misanthropic.
Team Size, Communication Overhead, and Output Distribution
- Strong agreement that communication overhead grows fast with team size; “wolf pack” teams of ~4–10 are often seen as optimal.
- References to Pareto/Price’s law: a small fraction of people do a large fraction of valuable work; others note this doesn’t mean the rest are useless.
- Argument that big organizations often fail to properly decompose problems, so a small effective core ends up doing the real work.
Management Process, Meetings, and Tooling
- Common complaints: standups that don’t unblock, endless planning/retro rituals, and “visibility theater” for managers.
- Some argue good agile use should constrain recurring meetings and make all others explicitly tied to deliverables.
- Tools like Jira and heavy process are criticized for recombining divided work and exploding complexity and coordination costs.
Ownership, Responsibility, and Credit
- Many value clear ownership for getting things across the finish line.
- Others warn pure individual responsibility often degenerates into blame culture.
- Lack of credit for high contributors is described as “soul-killing,” though some say camaraderie and pay matter more than recognition.
Incentives, Performance, and Low Performers
- Collaboration/process is often seen as a way to cope with mediocre or unmotivated workers when hiring and firing are hard.
- Several stress incentive design: what gets rewarded (speed, impact, quality, teamwork) shapes behavior.
- Debate over whether incentives can really be aligned at scale; people are heterogeneous and systems often reward empire-building or politics.
Wartime Analogy and Evidence
- Multiple commenters challenge the WWII “only 15–20% fired their weapons” claim as methodologically weak or debunked.
- Others say, even if true, it’s a poor analogy for office work and misses factors like training, fear, and artillery’s role in combat.
Value of Good Collaboration
- Many personal anecdotes praise rare, high-trust, high-autonomy teams where collaboration makes “everyone smarter.”
- Others emphasize biological and systems analogies: combining complementary individuals can yield more value than lone geniuses, provided structure and incentives are well designed.