Why 90% of Companies Break After 50 People

Welcome to the second session of the 16-Kata series, where I continue breaking down what I have learned about building and scaling companies over the past decade. Uploaded 24-12-25 In this session, we focus on the hardest problem that emerges after early growth: coordination at scale. We examine why quality degrades as teams grow, why most services businesses fail when they scale too fast, and how leadership, incentives, and clear communication reduce coordination costs across large organizations. The session also explains why caring deeply about customers outperforms aggressive expansion, how leaders propagate standards through layers of teams, and why writing, incentives, and mastery matter more than control. If you are leading teams, scaling an organization, or trying to understand how alignment actually works inside growing companies, this session is designed to give you a practical mental model. 00:00 - Introduction 00:53 - The Challenge of Scaling Quality 08:20 - What Really Drives People? 11:58 - The Coordination Cost Framework 15:36 - Generating Current as a Leader 18:30 - The Power of Stories and Incentives 22:38 - Setting Incentives Effectively 28:20 - The Quest for Mastery 33:34 - The Leader's Toolkit 34:54 - Human-Related Blockages 40:05 - Avoiding Leader Burnout 44:52 - The Secret Weapon 49:13 - Rules and Enforcement 51:08 - The Four Horsemen of Closed Systems 55:09 - Why Coordination Matters 58:04 - The 100% Coordination Myth Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why 90% of Companies Break After 50 People | Kata 2