The point is not to split hairs between cubicles vs. fully open-plan. Both are unacceptable. The point is to show how Graham himself regarded private offices f

The point is not to split hairs between cubicles vs. fully open-plan. Both are unacceptable. The point is to show how Graham himself regarded private offices for every developer as a bang-simple, completely obvious requirement, going so far as to describe private office space as the second most important tool for a developer. Yet YC companies, and start-ups in general, don't even make a paltry attempt at this. They obstinately use undifferentiated, anti-privacy open spaces and then turn around and try to retroactively assert that ideals such as "collaborative" can only apply to their shitty open-plan spaces. "Dynamic" "collaborative" "teamwork" ... they try to appropriate these to be synonymous with only their spaces, and try to politically prevent any association between those ideals and private spaces. There's a major disconnect here between what the YC community obviously believes is the correct, healthy, productivity-enhancing, and cost-effective choice (private offices) and the shitty open-plan hells they create in reality. I'd like to see more candid examination of this, especially some examination where we get it straight up-front that real estate costs are not remotely close to being a significant factor in this.