That doesn't seem split at all. The vast majority don't seem to want to be in the office everyday. They disregarded those survey results though for their decision.

The vast majority prefer not to come to the office everyday. Google says you can only work from home slightly more than 1 day per month.

If they took the survey into account, it would have been the opposite - you're only required to come into the office 14 days per year.

Oh no, please don't start with the magical hallway conversations. I've never had a worthwhile conversation in a hallway or microkitchen, ever. This argument needs to die.

My previous 2 companies it rarely happened, if ever. But it has happened a lot with me at Google. But I also think it's a property of the teams I am on. Other teams it doesn't seem to happen as often.

Having whiteboards around, I will see people talking about certain things or explaining some new system, and it's easy to jump in. Maybe these could be considered impromptu meetings, but they still have been great for me.

Agreed -- I haven't worked on a project in the last ten years that didn't have some significant portion of relevant staff remotely located.

I'm not a developer, but I don't work with a group of people located in the same building, so all projects are de facto pretty remote heavy.