This healthcare company has 10,000 nurses with ZERO managers.

Nurses manage million-euro budgets without approval. They hire their own colleagues.

And they're outperforming every competitor by 40% at 1/3 the overhead cost.

The coolest company you've never heard of: In 2006, nurse Jos de Blok watched the community nursing industry fall into bureaucratic hell.

Patients saw 30-40 different caregivers per month. Nurses spent more time filling out forms than helping people.

His solution wasn't to fix management, but to eliminate it entirely.

In 1967, 3 astronauts burned alive within 17 seconds.

NASA’s response? Handing 26-year-olds the power to overrule senior executives.

That gamble would save the 1969 moon landing.

Here's how it worked: 🧵 On January 27, 1967, Apollo 1 sat on the launchpad for a routine test.

Inside are 3 astronauts.

The cabin is pumped with 100% pure oxygen to save weight, and the interior is filled with flammable materials.

There's a spark under one of their seats.

In 2021, leaked court documents revealed Valve employees make $1.3M a year.

But they don't have any bosses, managers or a chain of command.

Yet 336 employees generate $5 Billion a year while setting their own salaries.

How they do it is insane: 🧵 In 2012, Valve's employee handbook leaked online.

A 56 page document revealed their philosophy ignored everything about modern business management.

Co-founder Gabe Newell implemented this after 13 years at Microsoft convinced him bureaucracy kills creativity.

In 1943, Kelly Johnson built America's first fighter jet in 143 days with just 23 engineers in a circus tent.

His management strategy was so radical, it's still considered impossible by MBA programs.

Here's how it worked: 🧵 In 1943, Nazi Germany had fighter jets. America had none.

The military's solution was to form committees, write reports and hold meetings.

But Kelly Johnson's solution was different.

He locked 23 engineers in a rented circus tent with zero oversight and got to work.

Nucor - a $40 billion steel company operates with just 70 people at HQ.

Factory workers earn more than their managers, and there have been ZERO layoffs in 60+ years.

How Nucor does this feels unreal, but it isn't 🧵 Producing 25 million tons of steel is no joke.

Nucor produces more steel per employee than any US competitor while having the lowest labor cost per ton.

But how are they doing it despite paying the highest wages in the steel industry?

Let's dive in 👇

America's 2nd largest private company makes $125B/year, but most people haven't even heard of it.

Its revenue grew 100,000% during its first 40 years and has outperformed the S&P 500 by 26 times.

The company that breaks every rule taught in MBAs 🧵 You use Koch products daily without knowing it.

• That Brawny paper towel? Koch.
• Dixie cups at the office? Koch.
• Stainmaster carpet? Koch.
• The spandex in your workout clothes? Koch.

120,000 employees across 60 countries, hiding in plain sight.

A $5 billion company has operated for 65 years with ZERO managers.

Employees hire their own colleagues, rank each other for compensation, and choose their own projects.

This company has never had a loss-making year since 1958.

Thread W.L. Gore is a material science company with 13,000+ employees holding 1,000+ patents.

Your Gore-Tex jacket, medical implants, and guitar strings? All made by workers who report to no one.

And they have achieved that with ZERO management layers.

The question is how?

For the first time in history, the US is facing a scientist brain drain.

After Trump decided to cut 56% of the NSF budget, China launched a $500B science program to "steal" scientists.

How China is silently replacing US in the science war: 🧵 Let's go back to WWII.

Vannevar Bush (Roosevelt's advisor) convinced him that wars would be won by advanced tech, not just weapons.

Bush proposed that instead of having government labs build the weapons, they should give universities massive amounts of money to figure it out.

A Swedish bank lets branch managers approve million-dollar loans without asking anyone.

They've had ZERO bailouts in 150 years, crushed every competitor for 52 years, and employees own more shares than any other investor.

This shouldn't work, but it does 🧵 But first, let's go back to 1970...

Handelsbanken was on the verge of dying.

The CEO had just resigned over a foreign exchange scandal, and a tiny regional bank was stealing customers left and right.

Brian Chesky credits Airbnb's success to what Peter Thiel said after investing $150 M.

Chesky became so obsessed with Thiel's advice that today employees hire their own teammates at Airbnb.

Every entrepreneur needs to understand how & why it works: 👇 Brian Chesky had this crazy approach. He interviewed the first 400 people himself.

His question was crazy: "If you had a year left to live, would you still take this job?"

Most candidates thought he'd lost his mind. But it worked - he only hired people who'd die for the mission

A video game company made $2 billion in 1982.

Its employees used to drink beer in the office, hold meetings in hot tubs, and did coke with girls.

Even Steve Jobs was part of it once.

But within just 2 years, the company had to bury millions of games in a desert. Thread 🧵
Atari wasn't just any company.

Founded in 1972, it created the entire video game industry from scratch.

Engineers tested games in local bars to see how players responded.

Their first hit, Pong, caused such a sensation that the coin box literally overflowed with quarters.

LEGO was 4 weeks away from bankruptcy in 2003:

• Losing $1 Million per day
• $800 Million in debt
• Negative profit margin (-30%)

But then something happened, and by 2010, they started growing faster than Apple. How? 🧵 The situation was so dire that Lego's CEO had to send a memo:

"We're running out of cash and likely won't survive."

The 72-year-old company had never posted a loss until 1998.

By 2003, it lost $300M and projected a $400M loss in 2004.

Toyota lets 19-year-olds stop $2.5M/hour production lines.

Netflix's engineers spend company money with ZERO approval.

Amazon gives full independence to "2-pizza" teams.

Why the most profitable companies give extreme control to employees, and how it can save your business: 👇 The average lifespan of an S&P 500 company is just 15 years, and McKinsey predicts 75% of them will disappear by 2027.

One of the reasons companies die is that they are built on a hierarchical basis.

Even in the fast-paced world, most decisions require 5+ approvals.

A $1 billion company has operated for 53 years with ZERO managers.

Workers buy $500,000 machines without approval. Hire their own colleagues. Set their own salaries.

And they're outperforming every competitor in their industry.

The coolest company you've never heard of 🧵 Morning Star supplies 10% of the world's ingredient tomato products with just 550 employees.

It processes 30% of California's tomatoes.
Your tomato ketchup may be made by tomatoes processed here.

And they have achieved that with ZERO management layer.
The question is HOW?

In 1979, Jerry Buss bought the Lakers using a "Monopoly-like" deal.

For $67.5M, he got a team worth $7 Billion today.

But his true genius wasn't the price—it was turning basketball into Hollywood-level entertainment 🧵 A single Lakers courtside seat in 1979 generated $615 in annual revenue.

By 1988, the same seat generated $10,000+ annually.

Today, that single seat generates over $1.2 million per season—a 195,000% increase from Buss's purchase.

Let's dive in 👇

Instagram had 30M users and only 13 employees.
SpaceX's Falcon was launched by just 30 engineers.
WhatsApp reached 450M users with only 55 employees.

The math doesn't add up - until you understand what small teams know that big companies don't.

Thread 🧵
The numbers are staggering:

• Minecraft: Built by 1 person, acquired for $2.5 Billion
• Stripe: 7 devs, now valued at $50 Billion
• AirPods: 20-person team, $20B+ product line

Let's understand how tiny teams created more value than companies with thousands of employees...

Marvel was $700M in debt and bankrupt in 1996.

By 2005, they were so desperate that they offered their characters as collateral for a $525M loan.

If their first movies failed, they'd lose everything.

A thread 🧵 Marvel was selling film rights to survive.

They offered Sony the rights to EVERY Marvel character for just $25M, but Sony only bought Spider-Man.

X-Men went to Fox, and Hulk to Universal.

The Avengers were literally the heroes nobody wanted.

No one is going to believe this, but FedEx:

• Knew Tesla would succeed years before the Wall Street
• Spotted Nvidia's rise before any analyst
• Delivers 15 Million packages every day
• And employs 5,30,000+ people

Why FedEx is sitting on the world's most valuable data: 🧵 Fred Smith saw the revolution coming while still in college.

Flying computer parts as a Yale student, he noticed companies paying for entire planes to transport tiny components.

But he only started FedEx after serving in the Vietnam War.

Why is no one talking about Marc Andreessen?

• Was worth $100M at 24
• Once owned 5% of Nvidia (Worth $125B today)
• Built the first user-friendly browser (Mosaic)
• Invested $400M in Elon Musk's Twitter
• Told Microsoft to go to hell

The man who makes the future 🧵
Everyone’s online because of this guy.

At 21, Marc Andreessen built Mosaic—the first browser that didn’t suck.

Mosaic displayed images alongside text - something impossible before.

Within months, 2 million people downloaded it.

In 1985, Reebok dethroned Nike to become America's No. 1 shoe brand.

Reebok's sales exploded from $12.8M to $310M in just two years.

Phil Knight was watching his company get crushed by a British upstart...

But then Nike pulled out a $2.5M weapon to crush its rivals: 🧵 Nike's downfall began with pure arrogance.

When America was obsessed with aerobics, Nike execs dismissed it as "nothing more than fat ladies dancing to music."

Meanwhile, Reebok created the Freestyle - the first shoe designed for women.

This oversight cost Nike BILLIONS.

Andrew Carnegie went from $1.20 a week to $309 Billion.

When he retired, he gave away 90% of his wealth to build 2,509 libraries and funded multiple universities.

But he barely spent 2 hours every day to build this fortune.

Here's the entire story: 🧵 Carnegie wasn't always wealthy -- or even American.

His parents sold their belongings in Scotland to come to America when he was 13.

So Carnegie started working as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill where he earned $1.20 per week.