Which company's corporate culture features a "flat hierarchy" with no managers?

The company known for a flat hierarchy with no conventional managers is Valve Corporation.

Valve initially used a more traditional hierarchy, but after completing Half-Life 2 it shifted toward a flat organization. Outside executive management, the company has described itself as having no bosses. Its “open allocation” system lets employees move between teams and choose projects rather than receiving assignments through a standard managerial chain.

This structure fits Valve’s history as a game developer and creator of Steam. Employees are expected to identify promising ideas, recruit colleagues, and take responsibility for the results. Desks on wheels became a famous symbol of the system because workers could physically move to another project. Valve’s approach is sometimes described as leaderless, but that does not mean everyone has equal influence: senior employees and de facto project leads can still shape decisions.

The model has also produced criticism. A lack of formal managers can make coordination difficult, allow projects to lose momentum, and weaken internal checks. Valve itself has acknowledged that its structure contributed to slow output during parts of the 2010s. Thus, the clue points specifically to Valve’s unusual organizational design, not to the ordinary team structures used by most game publishers.