[jowiar]

The efficiency gain with open offices is that, for high-growth companies -- or ones that are uncertain about their long-term size, it's pretty easy to shuffle furniture around to squeeze in more people. When walls and doors get involved, you're committing to "each person gets X sq. ft", for a company that may grow from x to 2x employees.

That said, they're a disaster for productivity.

[Retric]

Often teams that go from X to 2X end up getting less stuff done. There is an argument that startups should grow as fast as possible to pre-pay that debt, but getting less stuff done while burning 2+x the money is only seen as a good idea in SV.

[st3v3r]

And that possibility is worth more than letting people get work done? I mean, if people don't get enough work done, you're never going to get to the point where you need to shuffle things around.

[TeMPOraL]

They'll get the work done, at the expense of their sanity.

Also, market inefficiency works here too, I think - it can take years before a company tanks. So productivity drop can go unnoticed forever (even when a company fails, there will be enough other factors to blame). Not to mention that marketing can successfully paper over all kinds of crap; mediocre is the standard in our industry.

[serge2k]

> each person gets X sq. ft

Which is how it should be, even with open offices.