Peopleware was a beneficial book, but these stories need corroboration. I talked to one of the authors at a conference once, told him how much I loved one of their stories (that the Dutch East India Company, once the greatest corporation in the world, still exists with a mere 50 employees who do nothing but fill out paperwork) and asked him where they'd found it. "Did we say that?" he asked. Yes, absolutely, I said. "Oh," he replied. "Usually we only make stuff up for our talks, not our books."
Thanks for mentioning that. I scroll to the bottom of the book and got this for reference:
"The Cornell experiment was never documented and has thus taken on the status of hearsay evidence except for those of us who were there. For a concurring view of the effect of music on concentration, see Jaynes, 1976, pp. 367-68."
