Understanding how bureaucracy develops

This is a very well written article. And I firmly agree with this from first-hand experience.

Organizational malleability is key. But it wouldn't work in FAANG style standardized performance review style of work.

Agreed - as organizations scale, it's like some kind of fundamental law of thermodynamics that says they must become more bureaucratic in order to remain competitive. I think it's because organizations can only work at scale if they minimize the variance of each individual business unit, and malleability threatens that. I still think that good enough leadership and communication should allow for malleable units to coexist well together, but that may be a naive ideal.

> I think it's because organizations can only work at scale if they minimize the variance of each individual business unit, and malleability threatens that.

It's because of the principal agent problem.

As organizations grow, people inside it become less and less oriented towards the organizational goal. The rigidity appears to fight that.