How the Dark Side of the Moon Operates: Over 300 Employees Without Departments or Titles, 5 Co-founders Each Leading 40 to 50 People

According to monitoring by 1M AI News, the magazine ‘Renwu’ reported that the AI startup Dark Side of the Moon currently has a team of over 300 people, with an average age of under 30. However, there are no departments, job levels, titles, OKRs, or KPIs within the organization. When employees need to collaborate, the default approach is not to report through layers of management but to communicate directly with one another; Yang Zhilin’s personal signature even states ‘direct communication.’ The article notes that under this flat structure, the five co-founders directly connect with 40 to 50 employees each. Details in the article suggest that Dark Side of the Moon does not simply eliminate management but instead shifts the complexity of management to recruitment, role changes, and tools. Over the past year, more than 100 new employees have been recruited through internal referrals, referred to internally as ‘person-to-person.’ Among the 30 employees interviewed, more than half have changed roles multiple times; compared to their previous jobs, this proportion is said to be ‘perhaps as high as 80%.’ Another detail mentioned is that 80% of colleagues are ‘I’ types, who prefer typing over talking, with some employees stating that ‘work can be done without meetings.’ Agents are also directly integrated into daily work. The article cites an example where product team member Leo, upon arriving at the office at 10 AM, simultaneously activates three agents to process 3,000 pieces of feedback from five markets over the past 24 hours, completing the PRD by 11:30 AM, with the code agent generating 70% of the basic framework. The article also notes that this model is approaching its limits: when asked whether the company could expand from 300 to 3,000 people, interviewees provided cautious responses, and some former employees expressed that the lack of hierarchical buffers and clear feedback could lead to feelings of insecurity.