[ryandrake]

There's nothing quite as ridiculous as an open office with row after row of employees sitting shoulder to shoulder, half of whom are loudly talking on video calls with their teams which are distributed among other offices where they are also sitting shoulder to shoulder in an open office. I'd be shocked that any deep concentration work gets done in such an environment.

EDIT: Furthermore, I think some execs in tech companies (particularly those who never were engineers) really believe that's how software development happens! Like if you ask your company's CEO how software gets written, he pictures this Wall Street-like trading floor where engineers are yacking at each other, and having standup meetings and flailing about at whiteboards, and that's the sound/busy-ness of engineering being done!