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500 - the number of employees before your CEO becomes a political figure

1000 - the size of company when you’re at risk of losing accountability

From my own experience and other sources (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35206141) those numbers seem too high. I've seen this happen 2 times in front of my eyes while both companies were in the 100-200 range.

One of them managed to go to the next level and adapt to the new reality the other is still struggling.



Yep, Dunbar's number is what you are looking at for this phase change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

So around the 150-200 mark.


I remember reading a CEO's categorisation of companies: he said, when I do to the office restroom, and another guy is at the urinal next to me, there are three different results based on the size of the company:

  1. I know who he is, and he knows who I am.
  2. I don't know who he is, but he knows me.
  3. Neither of us has any idea who the other one is.




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