This video on Spotify’s engineering culture eloquently expresses a vision roughly equivalent to the proposed organizational model of the CIC. However, note the way requirements are slipped into the video—mission statements, quarterly review and negototiation of vision, etc.—it is not described how these decisions will be made or by whom. At the CIC, these questions also enter the flattened negotiational sphere, becoming questions of user interface design, convenience, and accuracy in listing, rather than agreements or disagreements about how others should spend their time. A mere directory, the CIC merely indexes “small, cross-functional, self-organizing teams” (as the video puts it), allowing them to act as autonomous squads in holographic alignment and cooperation with other communities.

Here’s a screenshot from the video:

spotify engineering culture video diagram screenshot

Here’s another:

spotify engineering culture video diagram screenshot

And here’s the entire sketch drawn in the video (right click and ‘Open image in new tab’ to zoom in):

entire spotify engineering culture part 1 diagram