I can definitely understand how there's more collaborative bandwidth when you have a small group in a room, focused on a large, complex project such as early st

I can definitely understand how there's more collaborative bandwidth when you have a small group in a room, focused on a large, complex project such as early stages at a startup. However, I don't think that's necessary once you've broken up the tasks and started executing. Once you're at that stage, being crammed together in an office where everyone's trying to do head-down work on their own is a productivity killer. When MS came on the scene, my understanding is that their recruiting strategy was to get top talent and give everyone their own office, with a door. The thinking was that you're hiring people to focus on a problem, so give them a quiet place where they can work in peace. With that approach, MS proceeded to wallop the rest of the tech sector to the point that they were considered too successful. Fast forward to the final days of the pre-pandemic world, everyone forgot that lesson and was deeply entrenched in the cargo cult of open plan offices. Going back to that dynamic for mid-stage/mature business is a huge blunder.