Zuckerbergs attitude about this makes me think he's a terrible manager and probably not a very good programmer. I get that some people prefer to work together

Zuckerbergs attitude about this makes me think he's a terrible manager and probably not a very good programmer. I get that some people prefer to work together in a room, constantly interrupting each other. I don't understand why, but I respect their desire to do that, and would say, let them do it. But the idea that every engineer should be subjected to constant interruptions without the choice to have some personal space to focus on work is asinine. I worked at Microsoft in the past. Their earliest buildings- from when they first got the chance to build their own office buildings are in the shape of very large Xs. Each of the four wings has a central hallway and then is divided up into rather small offices for one or two people. Everyone has a window out to the trees. Its the perfect programming environment (except for my neighbor who got in the habit of bouncing a racketball against our wall). For an example of what I'm talking about check out building #1-10 here: http://goo.gl/maps/kQRzp http://goo.gl/maps/kQRzp Your view was predominantly trees too. Later buildings are built like Es and other shapes that have a lot of surface area, though some became more "office like" during the period where they were hiring so many employees that they needed to maximize density rather than productivity. (irony, I know.) One of the reasons I'm a startup founder rather than an employee was too many employers choosing "collaborative" office plans because they were cheaper. And for the record, I've found that collaboration works much better when you have a choice about it-- when the serendipitous interactions happen in the break room or somewhere else where you're not trying to focus on a problem. But hey, these days most of these sites are websites, and don't really have big engineering problems to solve. Maybe they don't need to think deeply. For instance, compare this office with Apple's new Mothership. The O has a great deal of surface area, and looking out the outer windows you will only see parkland (The parking is underground and the property is bordered with trees.) Even the center area of the O is a park itself, and the O is so huge that it should be a decent view.