> "The one big thing I forgot about that was the value of the employee communications you get with cubes." [paraphrased Eric Schmidt] [...] It’s utter bullshit

> "The one big thing I forgot about that was the value of the employee communications you get with cubes." [paraphrased Eric Schmidt] [...] It’s utter bullshit and executive fantasy. If you walked around Google and their open offices, almost half the workers are wearing headphones to screen out the noise. Do you just yell over and communicate with people, like in the executives’ fantasy? No, first you have to wave your hand in front of their face to get their attention. FWIW, cubicles can work better than that. My first software engineering job, we had cubicles, and you could walk past and see what people were doing, knock (if they hadn't configured their cube to have the opening in view), wheel your chair to the opening and talk across the hallway, wave someone into your cube to see something on your screen, etc. People actually did all that often. And on occasion you could get some focus time. But when I visited one of the Google satellites, there was this big area of dystopian open office layout, with people clustered densely around these grotesque insectoid pods of desktop. I don't blame them for needing headphones. I recall the mere sight of the pods making me anxious, and thinking that I would have to find a way to work there without becoming a pod person. Anyway, I wouldn't take Eric Schmidt seriously, on the proper care and feeding of tech workers, after his involvement in screwing over all tech workers (at certain illegally colluding big companies, but also with presumed cascading market effects for everyone else): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal_non-recruiting_agreements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt#Role_in_illegal_n...