Medium and Holacracy: What We Can Learn from the Experiment

When companies discuss Holacracy, two names often come up: Zappos and Medium. While Zappos became known as the large-scale experiment with 1,500 employees, Medium represents a different type: a fast-growing tech startup, founded by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, that implemented Holacracy from the beginning.

But unlike Zappos, Medium significantly modified the system after about three years. What does this mean? Failure or evolution? The answer is more nuanced than headlines suggest.

Important Note on Sources

Unlike Zappos, where multiple academic studies document the implementation, Medium’s Holacracy experience is primarily documented through practitioner reports, interviews, and news articles.¹ This analysis therefore relies more heavily on general research about self-organization and documented patterns from comparable implementations.

The Starting Point: Why Medium Chose Holacracy

Medium launched in 2012 with a clear vision: creating a platform for thoughtful, long-form content. Evan Williams, who had already co-founded Blogger and Twitter, sought an organizational form that would enable innovation and rapid iteration.²

Holacracy’s promise matched the startup culture:

• Fast decisions without management bottlenecks
• Clear roles instead of vague job descriptions
• Flexible structural adaptation as the team grew

Williams himself described Holacracy as a system that “creates clarity: who is in charge of what, and who makes each kind of decision.”²

The Implementation: What Medium Practiced (2013-2016)

Medium implemented Holacracy from the start as its primary organizational model:

What is documented:

• Full adoption of the Holacracy constitution
• Role-based structure with governance processes
• Circle organization for different company areas
• Growth from a handful of employees to about 100-150 during the Holacracy phase

What is less documented:

• Specific adaptations to media industry requirements
• Detailed employee satisfaction metrics
• Internal evaluation processes

The Modification: What Happened from 2016

Around 2016, Medium began reintroducing traditional management elements. By 2017, the company had established a hybrid model combining Holacracy principles with conventional leadership structures.¹

The common interpretation: Medium “abandoned” Holacracy—a sign that the system doesn’t work.

The more nuanced reading: Medium productively used Holacracy for three years and then modified it contextually as requirements changed.

Research Perspective: Failure or Evolution?

Research on flat structures provides important context for Medium’s development:

The “Flat Paradox”

A study of 339 startups shows: Flatter hierarchies promote creative performance but can struggle with commercial execution.³

Relevant for Medium:

• The content platform needs both innovation (where Holacracy shines) and operational discipline (where traditional structures can help)
• As Medium transitioned from pure platform building to a monetized business model, requirements changed

Structure-Culture Fit

Research on Holacracy implementations emphasizes: Success depends critically on whether structure and culture align.⁴

Medium was strongly founder-centric. Williams’ vision shaped the company culture. When his priorities shifted or the company grew, this could change the dynamic—regardless of the organizational model.

Hybrid Models as Legitimate Evolution

The Harvard Business Review analysis explicitly recommends: “Elements of self-organization can be valuable tools for companies of all kinds”—including in combination with traditional models.¹

Medium followed exactly this pattern: preserving Holacracy principles for innovation, supplemented by traditional accountability structures for operational requirements.

Lessons Learned: What Medium Shows About Holacracy

1. Context Determines Fit

Holacracy is not a universal model. It works differently depending on:

• Company phase: Startup vs. scaling vs. established enterprise
• Industry: Technology platform vs. publishing operation
• Founder culture: How strongly is the organization aligned with the founder?

Medium shows: What works during the building phase doesn’t have to remain optimal permanently.

2. Modification Is Not Failure

The binary reading “uses Holacracy = success / modifies Holacracy = failure” misses reality.¹

Relevant questions:

• Did the organization function during the Holacracy phase? (For Medium: yes, three years of growth)
• Did it learn from the experience? (For Medium: yes, targeted hybrid model)
• Would a traditional structure have been better from the start? (Unknown—there’s no control group)

3. Tech Industry Is No Guarantee

Medium’s experience refutes the assumption that Holacracy automatically fits tech companies.

Other tech companies with different experiences:

• Mercedes-Benz.io: Successful long-term implementation⁵
• Valve: Flat structure with its own model (not Holacracy, but self-organized)
• Automattic (WordPress): Distributed structure with 1,800+ employees

Industry alone doesn’t explain success or modification.

4. Three Years Is Not a Short Test Phase

Organizations that productively use a model for three years and then modify it haven’t “briefly tried and given up.” They’ve learned and adapted.

Research shows: This kind of evolution is normal and healthy.⁴ Dogmatically sticking to a model despite changed requirements would be the more problematic response.

Comparison: Medium vs. Zappos

Aspect	Medium	Zappos
Size at start	Small (< 50)	Large (~1,500)
Implementation approach	From the beginning	Transformation
Duration of pure implementation	~3 years	~4-5 years
Current use	Hybrid model	Adapted Holacracy
Academic documentation	Limited	Extensive

Both companies modified Holacracy. Neither has completely “abandoned” it. Both use elements of the system today.

What Medium Doesn’t Prove

Medium is not proof that Holacracy “doesn’t work.”

• The company used it successfully for three years
• The modification happened for context-specific reasons
• The hybrid model retains Holacracy principles

Medium is not a counterexample to Zappos.

• Both companies adapted
• Both retained core elements
• Different contexts, different evolution

Medium doesn’t prove that startups should avoid Holacracy.

• Three productive years during the critical growth phase
• Deliberate adaptation, not crisis-driven abandonment
• Other startups use similar models successfully long-term

Conclusion: Organizational Maturity, Not Failure

Medium’s experience illustrates an important insight: Organizational models are tools, not dogmas.

A company that practices Holacracy for three years, learns from it, and develops a context-specific hybrid model demonstrates organizational maturity—not weakness.

The real lesson is not “Holacracy works” or “Holacracy fails.” It’s: The ability to consciously choose and adapt structures is more important than loyalty to any particular model.

Medium demonstrates exactly that.

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Research Methodology

This analysis combines available academic research on Holacracy and self-organization with documented practitioner reports about Medium’s development. Unlike Zappos, no specific academic case studies exist for Medium—the analysis therefore relies on general research patterns and comparative contextualization.

Disclosure

SI Labs has practiced Holacracy for over 10 years. This experience informs our perspective but does not influence the presentation of the limited available documentation, which includes both positive and critical aspects.

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Sources

Footnotes

1. Bernstein, E., Bunch, J., Canner, N., and Lee, M. “Beyond the Holacracy Hype.” Harvard Business Review 94(7/8): 38-49 (2016). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

2. Robertson, B.J. Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World. Henry Holt and Company (2015). Contains endorsement by Evan Williams. ↩ ↩²

3. Burton, M.D., and Radzik, T. “The myth of the flat start-up: Reconsidering the organizational structure of start-ups.” Strategic Management Journal (2021). DOI: 10.1002/smj.3333 ↩

4. Holacracy – the future of organizing? The case of Zappos. Human Resource Management International Digest (2018). DOI: 10.1108/hrmid-08-2018-0161 ↩ ↩²

5. Challenging the hierarchy. Strategic Direction (2021). DOI: 10.1108/sd-11-2021-0143 ↩