Management for Anarchists is a newsletter about the practice of management, written from a position of healthy skepticism about authority and hierarchy.

The name comes from Noam Chomsky's observation that any structure of authority and domination must justify itself—it carries a burden of proof. As managers, we operate within such a structure.

This newsletter explores two questions: How does someone who shares Chomsky's wariness of authority succeed in corporate leadership? And what can everyone—skeptics and true believers alike—learn from that perspective?

I've been managing for over a decade, and I find that my discomfort with authority has made me more effective, not less. The contradictions of management are fascinating: you have to use hierarchical tools to build great teams, while remaining aware that those tools can easily become obstacles to great work.

This newsletter is for managers who want to examine their practice more deeply, and for individual contributors who want to understand how to work more effectively with their managers. Whether you see management as necessary infrastructure or necessary evil, there's value in understanding it better.

I write about management practice, organizational dynamics, and the occasional war story. Subscribe to get unorthodox management insights in your inbox.

— Rafe Colburn

About Me

I'm Rafe Colburn. I've spent my career building products and leading engineering teams, most recently helping turn around Depop before returning to Etsy to lead the combined product and technology organization.

You can find me on LinkedIn or BlueSky. I also have a coding blog at rafe.codes.