How the Dark Side of the Moon works: 300+ people with no department or job grade, 5 co-founders each directly managing 40 to 50 people

According to 1M AI News monitoring, a report by People magazine stated that the Dark Side of the Moon AI startup currently has a team of over 300 people, with an average age of under 30 years old, but there are no internal departments, no job titles, no ranks, and no OKRs or KPIs. When employees need to collaborate, the default approach is not layers of reporting but direct communication; Yang Zhilin's email signature reads "Direct Communication." The article mentions that in this flat structure, the 5 co-founders each directly manage 40 to 50 employees.

From the details in the article, Dark Side of the Moon has not simply eliminated management but has shifted the complexity of management to recruitment, job rotations, and tools. Over the past year, over 100 new employees joined the company through referrals, internally referred to as "word of mouth." Among the 30 interviewed employees, more than half have had their responsibilities changed multiple times, with the article stating that this proportion "probably reaches 80%" compared to their previous roles. Another detail in the article is that 80% of colleagues here are introverts, more inclined to type than speak, and some employees openly say, "We can work without meetings."

Agents are also directly integrated into daily work. People magazine provides an example where Leo, a member of the product team, upon arriving at the office at 10 a.m., simultaneously activates 3 Agents to process 3000 items of feedback from 5 markets in the past 24 hours. By 11:30 a.m., the Product Requirements Document is completed, and the Code Agent has generated 70% of the basic framework. The article also notes that this mode is approaching its limits: when asked if the team could expand from 300 to 3000 people, most interviewees responded cautiously, and some former employees mentioned that the lack of hierarchical buffers and clear feedback leads to insecurity.