> Plus, it’s widely and popularly disputed that open plans are actually cheaper, e.g. even in pop articles like this:
It is now, but when did that start?
I vaguely recall when it was still actually controversial (perhaps due to lack of data), but that may have been as long as 10 years ago. I also recall when open plan wasn't even a thing and the discussion was merely cubicles vs. hard walls.
> My only remaining surprise is at how long this open plan bubble can persist before people realize these companies are not about any type of productivity.
If I may be flippant for a moment, I'm shocked.. shocked!.. That there is wastefulness going on this VC-fueled establishment.
I'm certainly less surprised, as I believe productivity (and its less sexy cousins efficiency and profit) have long been disregarded as being far less important than growth, ever since the dot-com boom, in the world of (many, if not most) VC-driven startups.
What startles me is just how much VC money is flowing directly up to Amazon via AWS (sometimes actually encouraged by the VCs themselves), as that smells more like inflation of a bubble than merely paying programmers to be distracted.
For me personally, I derive a lot of self-identity from my own productivity, and end up caring about my work and treating it like a craft.
I wish I could turn this off and just accept better paying jobs that embed me in a distraction-filled room where nobody really cares about my productivity so long as I superficially appear to try hard and evangelize the company line.
But I just can't. I am too intrinsically quixotic. For me, and the I guess dying breed of people like me, the side effect of the VC behavior you mention is like death by a thousand cuts.
I'm not sure we're so much a dying breed as that we were always a small minority to begin with.
We just have to hold out hope for the even rarer manager that recognizes such objective value and can transform it into subjective value to sell up the chain.
It is now, but when did that start?
I vaguely recall when it was still actually controversial (perhaps due to lack of data), but that may have been as long as 10 years ago. I also recall when open plan wasn't even a thing and the discussion was merely cubicles vs. hard walls.
> My only remaining surprise is at how long this open plan bubble can persist before people realize these companies are not about any type of productivity.
If I may be flippant for a moment, I'm shocked.. shocked!.. That there is wastefulness going on this VC-fueled establishment.
I'm certainly less surprised, as I believe productivity (and its less sexy cousins efficiency and profit) have long been disregarded as being far less important than growth, ever since the dot-com boom, in the world of (many, if not most) VC-driven startups.
What startles me is just how much VC money is flowing directly up to Amazon via AWS (sometimes actually encouraged by the VCs themselves), as that smells more like inflation of a bubble than merely paying programmers to be distracted.