It's not even that, he has a nice office (with a door, and a big desk, and an Aeron, of course) and can't physically watch us work anyway. He just has this idea

It's not even that, he has a nice office (with a door, and a big desk, and an Aeron, of course) and can't physically watch us work anyway. He just has this idea in his head about how an office should look, and U-shapes are not it. I guess it's the management equivalent of bikeshedding.