On: The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration

[orev]

Employees are still more expensive by far than floor space. It seems crazy to have all that investment in people and then not optimize the environment they work in.

[brixon → orev]

They are different budgets (different buckets of money). I worked at one company that had no money for new computers, but had plenty of money to fix a broken computer... so... my computer happen to break one day so bad all the internals needed to be replaced. The case was old, but all the internals were brand new. Companies are often short sighted and don't look at the whole picture.

[kps → orev]

In Silly Valley, employees are a Veblen good. The whole point is to display as many as possible without actually doing anything useful.

[beamatronic → kps]

Or sequester then from your competitors, like so much carbon

[jonhendry18 → orev]

Especially at a place like Apple. Depressing to see them, of all companies, moving toward more open workspaces.