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A comment on $1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes. Parent comment

Re:$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes by davidw on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:13PM (#20215475)
Those companies are pretty cool and I think we'll see more in the future. That said, while they're better than the alternative of not existing at all, it's not a given that they're not inferior to a company operating out of one office where it's easier to communicate.
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Re:$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes by CiPHPerCoder on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:15PM (#20215505)
Open offices with white noise generators don't exactly strike me as the paragon of ease of communication.
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Re:$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes by minwcnt5 on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @01:35PM (#20215793)
They work better than closed offices, in my experience, for the roles I've worked in (software engineering).

I'm way more likely to ask a co-worker over to my desk to show them something or have a discussion if they're a few feet away within sight and earshot. In an open office I also overhear a lot of pertinent information -- I'm aware of issues that might be relevant to me as they develop, I don't have to wait hours or days for someone to communicate them in an email, issue tracker, or meeting.

There's a cost in terms of readily available heads-down concentration time to be sure, but if I want to mess around with math formulas or something I pop on the headphones, go to a quiet room, or do it at home. It's much harder to replicate the benefits of an open office environment in a closed one than the reverse.

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Re:$1B for 20,000 Bay Area homes by manigandham on Tuesday June 18, 2019 @06:31PM (#20219119)
So an open floor plan full of distractions for the occasional time you call someone else over audibly and immediately, while possible interrupting them and others? And when you want to work, wear headphones or go to an entirely different place?

Why does it make sense to optimize for the former instead of the latter? The benefits must be studied in context of how overall productivity and bottomline is affected, not just easy it is to start talking to someone.

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