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by arjie 3194 days ago
I know a HN trope is to be anti-open-office but maybe it's better to be imitating the guys valued at 20B than the guys valued at 200k.

We need a "Show me the code" équivalent for claims about business. "Show me the money"

If open offices were a big factor, I'd expect private office startups to out-compete.
2 comments
sooheon 3194 days ago
"Show me the money" is biased toward the status quo. If your litmus test for smart policy or decision-making "is everyone else who is successful doing it?", you will always lag behind the best.
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arjie 3194 days ago
That's true, and I can't think of a good alternative.

But there's a clear problem on HN where people who don't run businesses and don't know how to pontificate on things like this citing nebulous results on productivity.

If open-offices are so remarkably detrimental, then I await the disrupting startup that blows the rest of the industry out of the water by using private offices.

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alkonaut 3194 days ago
> If open-offices are so remarkably detrimental,

Assume they aren't. This place may of course be a bit biased - but among developers the opinion is at least appears to be very clear on that open offices suck. I'd even dare argue that many developers would either not work at a company with open offices, or would at least factor it in and weigh it against compensation.

Now if this is the case, then regardless of whether there are tangible benefits of having private offices, companies would either lose out on talent, or need to compensate them more than they otherwise would. See the point isn't only whether developers are less happy or less productive in open offices - the point is also whether they believe they are less happy and less productive in open offices. And that is much easier to test/prove than whether they actually are.

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walshemj 3194 days ago
IBM did not find it nebulous its just that the tail services HR Building Services are lowed two much power and game the system to save money short term (and get a bonus) with no thought to the longer term value.
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fetbaffe 3194 days ago
It exists lots of research how bad open offices are.

You could argue that the big companies could be even more successful.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15329605

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