I know, I was thinking exactly the same thing as I read this.

I wonder which large companies have held out against this type of decay through the decades and how they managed it.

Whether that indeed a decay is questionable.

Sony had its own approach to this(citing Yoshide Nakamura): Our company management felt that to prepare the company for the digital network era of the 21 century, it was important to have the most appropriate organizational structure in place. That was the core reason why we created our new structure. Sony is a large company now. Our worldwide consolidated sales are over $56 billion, with 170,000 employees, but in spirit we always try to be small venture company. We want to maintain this, So when Mr.Nabuyuki Idei became president in April 1995, he gave us two slogans: "Regeneration" and "Digital Dream Kids." Thats the spirit of being small and going back to when we started Sony in 1946. So we want to make Sony smaller. Instead of having this huge corporation, he wants to organize Sony into four divisional companies so that a small venture capital spirit can be brought into management

"The technical hierarchy is kept very simple and 'shallow' so that there is minimal bullshit and over-organization."

With this posting it seems like deep hierarchy bullishit and over-organization is inevitable in any growing organisation.

If you read a bit of Brooks, you'll see why this is indeed more or less inevitable - the addition of hierarchy reduces the communication costs in a growing organization.

Brooks oversimplified a bit. In a large organization, more PMs and subdivindings into groups are necessary. Hierarchy isn't.

Exactly, two things came to mind when I read that.

First: Sounds like a great place to work!

Second: What happend?

Success.

Wasn't it pg who said that in early-stage startups you attract people who want to build a great company, but in later stage companies you attract people who want to work for a great company?

I thought it was Jamie Zawinski:

http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html

I think that cyclical is a much more accurate description than 'endlessly spin around in circles'. The latter implies no net progress, which I don't believe is really true.