I still remember the day that I started at Rhythm & Hues.

During our orientation, we all were told the same story about the inception of this company we were about to embark upon a journey with: The founders, including John Hughes, had been working elsewhere over 25 years ago, and things were going well as far as any of them knew. One day, though, they showed up to work to find the office doors chained shut.

The company had gone under and was not able to fulfill its financial obligations to its staff, so they closed up shop and took off. Every worker was left stranded, unemployed. It was then that the people who came to found Rhythm & Hues joined together and decided to start their own scrappy company.

This company would be one that was built with a “horizontal” management structure, where the employees would have full...