I don't believe the organizational structure has an impact until you get over a few hundred employees.
Disagree. There are 50-person companies with all the negatives of MegaCorps (bureaucracy, closed allocation). That stuff starts to matter around 15-20 people.
Even before you have actual bureaucracy, if the founders haven't set forth some strong statements on what they want the company to be, there will be political behavior very early on as people anticipate what might come about with growth. Titles are meaningless at 10 people, but people will still fight for them, knowing that (if the organization moves along the default "main sequence") they will be massively important in the future.
I can definitely attest to 50 person bureaucratic companies, having worked in several. I think this comes down to (as Guy Kawasaki puts it) a Bozo Explosion. Hire bad people, those people hire bad people and the politics get bad quickly.
Disagree. There are 50-person companies with all the negatives of MegaCorps (bureaucracy, closed allocation). That stuff starts to matter around 15-20 people.
Even before you have actual bureaucracy, if the founders haven't set forth some strong statements on what they want the company to be, there will be political behavior very early on as people anticipate what might come about with growth. Titles are meaningless at 10 people, but people will still fight for them, knowing that (if the organization moves along the default "main sequence") they will be massively important in the future.