Every meeting is a tax. It interrupts deep work for everyone in the room, costs the company a multiple of its scheduled length in context-switching, and produces decisions that often could have been made in a written thread in half the time. The compounding cost of a meeting culture is one of the largest hidden taxes inside a growing company.
The async-default operating model
Async-default does not mean no meetings. It means meetings are reserved for the situations where they are demonstrably better than writing: high-bandwidth debate of a complex trade-off, building trust with someone new, or working through a hard interpersonal conversation. Everything else, status, FYI, light decisions, becomes a written thread.
The shape of a good written thread
A good thread leads with the decision being asked for, includes the context needed to evaluate it, names the recommended option, and gives a response deadline. The author is the single-threaded owner; reviewers respond by the deadline or are presumed to defer.
What you get back
Hours of focused time per person per week, a searchable record of why decisions were made, and a culture where the slowest reviewer no longer sets the company's pace. The cost is real, you have to write better. That is a worthwhile trade.