“It really is extreme. Extreme people with extreme skills, doing stuff people wouldn’t think possible.” Adrian was half proud, half nervous as he walked through the doors of the most mythical company in town – aptly called Xtreme. Unpretentious, an almost anonymous location. But inside, a nerd’s heaven.

The interview was nothing like he had imagined. And very far from any interview he had experienced before. He was to pitch right in on a project for a week. And then his team mates were to decide if they wanted to let him on board. He had to impress them, ha had to be extreme. “Impress people like Claes, Florian, Maria and Michael. Damn, I have to be on top of my game here, cuz those guys are freakin legends in the open source world.” But so was Adrian. He had run several projects that has gotten good traction on Github, and that was precisely why Florian had asked him to come and show off his awesome. But Adrian was never the bragging, arrogant type. Shy and humble, submerged in an intense interest for developing the next coolest thing – he so wanted to work with these guys.

Getting on board meant to actually own an equal piece of the company and share the responsibilities, decisions, salary, perks and work with everybody else at Xtreme. And it meant getting to work with the top notch developers in the world, doing stuff that really matters. No wonder Adrian was tense.

But the week went surprisingly well. His team mates were including and helpful and he got plenty of opportunity to show his skill set. He worked on a technically challenging and interesting project that would prove extremely valuable for a customer building rescue helicopters.

He got to see the organization up close. Or rather, the lack thereof. Without any executives or hierarchy, the company was light, quick and ultra-dynamic. “But how do you make important decisions, like moving the company to new premises?” he had asked. “It’s like in this village called Endesh in North Tanzania“, Florian replied, “they get together and decide.” “All of them?” “Yeah all of them. All of us.”

“But don’t you need executives?” Adrian looked somewhat puzzled. “Why?” Florian inquired. “What would you need an executive for? Do you need to be told what to do? Or what not to do? Or do you need someone else to motivate you to do your best? Because if you need those things, we don’t need you.” Adrian got the drift and answered “Well, I sure haven’t needed any of that to get me this far. The bosses I’ve had have more often than not been in my way, deciding on stuff they really don’t know and without the hands-on knowledge required to make the right choices. All while they think they know best.” Florian smiled. “Then we’re on the same page here. There is no set process, formal way or exact procedure for what we do. We have the best guys in our field, we get shit done, learn, and get even more shit done. It’s a continual evolution.“