[Jormundir]

I reject the implications of the dichotomy of command based and montessori based management structures, but I also think you're shrugging off some important negativities that come from open offices and flat structures. (I also really wish people would stop making statements like "they are farming black swans" when talking about these big tech companies. If black swans were farmable there would be no significance to the black swan).

Where I think the article has a good point: - These open offices are incredibly distracting, and it's not just sound, it's not a problem that can be mitigated by putting headphones on alone. In the open office at my workplace, I can see people moving; I can see who's going to meetings; I can see who's talking across the room. I think of this distraction, to use a popular new term, as a dark pattern to productivity.

I'd like to call B.S. on those who think great, creative new products come from chattering with your peers rather than working really hard. Ideas are the cheap and easy part, it's the execution that decides whether they come to fruition or not.

To me the big point about innovation, that I think you touched on and the article is wrong about, is these great ideas only happen when employees have the freedom to work hard on a side project. This is more likely to happen in a flat company, but can happen in a hierarchical one as well. Employees need to know that they can work hard on a gamble side project, and if it turns out well, will also have the freedom to integrate it with the company's product(s). That's where innovation comes from, and an open style office only slows down the work required to make an idea into a real product, and a hierarchically structured company is more likely to not allow such freedom.

[acgourley]

"If black swans were farmable there would be no significance to the black swan" - this statement does not make sense to me. It seems reasonable to think that they are both significant and can also be sought after more effectively than through random chance. If you mean to imply that if it were possible, it would be happening already then I would just say the experiments need to run another decade before we'll have good data.

[jfb]

Taleb's "black swan" is by definition not a repeatable -- or even predictable -- event. The metaphor loses all novel meaning if stripped of that quality.

[acgourley]

For reference the definition is, "an unpredictable or unforeseen event, typically one with extreme consequences." Let's take truly great works of art as an analog to black swans. I agree you cannot create a formula for churning out more great art, as one struck in a certain direction reduces the greatness and significance of others in that direction. But if some wealthy patron collected a bulk of the worlds great artists, giving them creative freedom, tools and space... I cannot say for sure it would result in more "great art" than would be produced otherwise. But I would not say it's impossible by definition, as you do.

[abawany]

Hear hear, re. open offices. Sometimes, one just wants quiet - not music, not chatter, not white noise. Not to mention the long-term hearing damage that comes as a result of being forced to listen to loud music to drown out the irrelevant chatter when you are just trying to write some code. Sad days.