[Centigonal]

That's really the first thing that comes to mind, isn't it?

I mean, I feel like it could go either way: eccentric jazz musician Sun Ra's Arkestra lived (and still mostly live) communally in a Philadelphia row house, and they haven't gone insane. On the other hand, the demands of a business are different from those of a musical group.

It seems like, for young tech people, the pendulum is swinging in the direction of communal living. Co-working spaces, specialized housing for groups of tech-entrepreneur-types[1], and more holistic workplaces (Google providing day-care, lots of startups bringing a chef on board to do meals in-house) seem to be in vogue right now. This looks like a particularly extreme extension of that trend (especially since they're leaving the city, a fundamental fixture in the SV startup culture), but I guess we'll see how it works out.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Tech-entrepreneurs-rev...

[lhgaghl]

They may not have gone insane, but Sun Ra has been on Saturn.