Spotify's Squads and Tribes: The Model Everyone Copied (That Spotify No Longer Uses)
In 2012, Spotify released a video about their engineering culture. It showed autonomous “squads,” aligned into “tribes,” supported by “chapters” and “guilds.” It looked amazing. Teams working independently. No bureaucracy. Innovation everywhere. The video went viral. Suddenly, every company wanted squads and tribes. Management consultants sold “Spotify Model transformations.” Books were written. Certifications created. There was just one problem: Spotify doesn’t use the Spotify Model anymore. The model that everyone copied was a snapshot of one moment in Spotify’s history. A work in progress. An experiment. ...