You weren't meant to have a boss (2008)

Appeal to “Natural” and Human Evolution

• Many comments attack the essay’s reliance on “natural” as an argument, calling it a classic appeal-to-nature fallacy.
• Critics note that “natural” also includes infant mortality, infections from splinters, and plagues; therefore “more natural” isn’t automatically “better.”
• Others defend a more nuanced view: evolution shaped what tends to make humans thrive (small groups, time in nature), so it’s reasonable to question extreme departures from that, without demanding a return to prehistory.
• Life expectancy debates appear: people clarify that low historical averages were mostly due to infant mortality, not everyone dying at 21.

Hierarchy, Scale, and Large Projects

• Some argue large-scale achievements (pyramids, armies, modern infrastructure, Apollo, CERN, etc.) require hierarchy, management, and process.
• Others counter that many large systems (global supply chains, Wikipedia, some family firms) emerge from looser coordination and mixed or minimal hierarchy.
• There’s disagreement on whether large collective efforts mostly serve war and elite power or also benefit society at large.

Startups vs Big Corporations and Personal Fit

• Several anecdotes describe startups as high-agency, exhausting but exhilarating, with rapid impact and learning.
• Large corporations are often depicted as process-heavy, politicized, slow, and deadening to motivation—yet also safe, well-paid, and compatible with family life or part-time engagement.
• Some say most people are fine with stable, low-agency roles, finding fulfillment outside work; others insist “nobody is meant to have a boss.”

Alternative Organizational Models

• Experiments with flat or “boss-less” structures reportedly work up to a few dozen people, then hit coordination problems and implicit “shadow hierarchies.”
• Ideas floated: worker cooperatives hiring managers, inverted power structures, nested/cooperative systems, and AI-driven central planning. Feasibility is widely questioned; measurement of individual value is seen as especially hard.
• Observations that even “hierarchy-free” setups often quietly recreate hierarchies.

Broader Political and Economic Critiques

• Some commenters are frustrated that critiques of “unnatural” work come from wealthy investors who don’t advocate systemic reforms (housing, healthcare, taxation, worker ownership).
• Debates touch on capitalism vs cooperative or socialist approaches, with references to historical planned economies and their failures, and to culture as a constraint on cooperative models.