Organizations as they grow become increasingly about optics (politics) not output (ground truth).

When you do an action, you have the direct output that comes out of it, as well as the optics of other people inside being able to see you do it.

The former is what matters, but the latter is what is directly observable from afar.

You can only see the true action -> output if you are up very close.

When the organization is small, everyone can see everyone creating value; they can see the direct line from their actions to the value, and you can see your neighbors, too.

This can lead to a scenius of creation, based on deep trust and intertwined fates.

But as the org gets larger, the direct line from action to value becomes muddled.

You have a larger audience, and from afar they can only see the optics, not the output.

People will judge you based on your optics, and if they don't think you're doing a good job, you might be left behind or knocked out of the game.

So as the org gets larger, you can feel your action to output less (it's more shared) and also the vast majority of people who are judging you can only see your optics.

So the organization becomes about performative actions, not valuable actions. This is inherent in all large assemblages of people.