Managers and "hierarchy" aren't toxic if it's conceptual hierarchy and if management is more of a sponsorship/mentoring role, but when you have a stable hierarchy of people and begin restricting internal mobility, you're fucked. You can't be completely "flat" at 10,000 employees, but I refuse to believe that a company can't get to that point and retain a decent culture. However, you probably can't grow to that number in 4 years.
Companies lose their culture when they hire before they trust. That makes an underclass that's used for grunt work but gets no respect. Soon they hire an "HR expert" who sets up a stack-ranking system and an annual "low-performer" witch hunt and the company's culture is garbage.
I can't put a number on what is growing too fast, but you can't hire before you trust. By "trust", I mean that people should be trusted with their own working time to do good for the company. I'm not saying they should have million-dollar expense accounts.
Companies lose their culture when they hire before they trust. That makes an underclass that's used for grunt work but gets no respect. Soon they hire an "HR expert" who sets up a stack-ranking system and an annual "low-performer" witch hunt and the company's culture is garbage.
I can't put a number on what is growing too fast, but you can't hire before you trust. By "trust", I mean that people should be trusted with their own working time to do good for the company. I'm not saying they should have million-dollar expense accounts.