I'm glad the open plan is being reconsidered. Personally, I don't think open plans scale past 4-8 people for reasons stated in the article - ambient noise and

I'm glad the open plan is being reconsidered. Personally, I don't think open plans scale past 4-8 people for reasons stated in the article - ambient noise and conversations. I can see why startup CEOs love them: they achieve success with a small number of employees - mostly quiet technical types crammed into a single room- and build a successful foundation. Survivor bias kicks in and now open plans get baked into company culture. Nobody asks "Does this layout make sense now that we're more than just 6 hackers in a room?"