Canva positions its data science team as a partner that empowers marketers with information, rather than a gatekeeper that stifles creativity. This allows the marketing team to remain focused on their core function and take big, creative swings that can't be fully measured upfront.

Large companies like Rippling and TripActions maintain innovation velocity by creating "carved out" teams for new, "zero to one" initiatives. This organizational strategy provides singular focus, empowering a small group to execute with the intensity and speed of an early-stage startup without corporate distractions.

While traditionally creating cultural friction, separate innovation teams are now more viable thanks to AI. The ability to go from idea to prototype extremely fast and leanly allows a small team to explore the "next frontier" without derailing the core product org, provided clear handoff rules exist.

PostHog manages its 16+ product suite by assigning small, autonomous teams of roughly three engineers to each product. This "compound startup" approach allows them to go wide, competing with multiple point solutions while remaining flat and avoiding bureaucracy. The small team structure fosters ownership and rapid development.

Supercell rejected traditional top-down hierarchy. Instead, they empower small, autonomous teams ('cells') with full creative ownership over their games. Management's role is to support these cells, much like a record label supports its artists, not dictate creative direction.

Large corporations can avoid stagnation by intentionally preserving the "scrappy" entrepreneurial spirit of their early days. This means empowering local teams and market leaders to operate with an owner's mindset, which fosters accountability and keeps the entire organization agile and innovative.

A new organizational model is emerging where companies create small, agile teams comprising a senior expert, an engineer, and a marketer. Empowered by AI tools, these pods can develop and launch new products in a week, a task that once required large teams and over six months.

Instead of building massive teams around one or two products, Anduril launches dozens of products, each with a small, lean, autonomous team. The founder finds this approach easier to manage as it avoids middle management bloat, keeps the 'cooks in the kitchen' to a minimum, and leverages natural team dynamics.

To avoid bureaucratic bloat, organize the company into small, self-sufficient "pods" of no more than 10 people. Each pod owns a specific problem and includes all necessary roles. Performance is judged solely on the pod's impact, mimicking an early-stage startup's focus.