Andy Grove's Arithmetic for Team Sizing

00:17:20 — Andy Grove’s Arithmetic for Team Sizing

Larson acknowledges there isn’t great conclusive data about optimal team sizes, but argues that simple arithmetic is surprisingly powerful. He references Andy Grove’s rule of thumb: you spend half a day per person on your team, so you can’t have more than about 10 direct reports. These simple heuristics based on observing the actual constraints of your time often work better than trying to find the perfect research-backed answer. Sometimes we try to complicate things that can be derived from basic observation.