And you are absolutely correct. I've seen the DT page thanks to the linked HN submission (actually comment [1]. And incorrectly associated the DT article incorrectly today. Thank you.
The biggest (engineering) team I've built and led was 150 people, so I cannot speak for 200. I don't feel that the solution of keeping the understanding of what is happening was about a formal structure like an "employee steering committee".
Rather than trusting the same principles used for scaling the doing side of the business. Things like empowering people to make decisions [1] or being clear about what/how/why you make certain types of decisions [2]. Working on staying aligned with your closest team, which then spent energy on staying aligned with their teams, etc. Sample randomly from the whole org, but mostly at your pace.
The biggest mistake I've made was that I've pulled myself (for legitimate reasons, it seemed) from having a true conversation with every single hire before they've gotten an offer, when we were around 70. 30 minutes is typically enough, but I feel you need a singular person as a gatekeeper for the final values-fit check. Partially thinking that 70 is already good enough, but later I've come across people talking about, like, 500 people before pulling out [3] :)
Adam Grant had recently Daniel Immerwahr on attention span and how it really has not shortened despite popular beliefs.
In the age of social media and short-form content, many people insist that our attention spans are getting shorter. But historian Daniel Immerwahr reminds us that people have cried wolf for centuries about technology hijacking our attention. In this episode, Adam and Daniel dive into evidence that what’s changing is not our attention spans, but the objects of our focus. They also discuss moral panics of the past, compare the cognitive benefits of video games and the opera, and debate whether or not Marvel movies are a waste of time.
I feel reason for short attention span be something todo with living in continuously added multi threaded world (current) vs not so multi threaded (past) requiring us to keep switching attention for example me writing this comment while monitoring a system while listening to music while thinking about the supper.
Love Pentel Graphear 1000, have multiple distributed throughout the house/workshop and backpacks :)
The other I really like is UNI Kuru Toga, the plastic one (shrug). The twist mechanism actually works; it is slightly wider thus more comfortable (for me) for longer writing sessions.
The twist mechanism really does work, but unfortunately it is easy to damage (for me). I damaged two kuru togas in the span of 6 months, very frustrating. The twist still works, but it is very wonky.
In my case - as my basic Kuru Toga died last week, the plastic of the casing just under the mechanism / just at the end of the body next to the rim broke down - because of the pressure i'm assuming, still a great pencil. I'm buying the advance one next.
[0]: https://github.com/bobek/rannich-5minut-denikn