Just because you like it does not mean that a lot of people likes it. As to reflect to your "Fact"s: "Fact" 0: In today's agility etc: this is mostly true for

Just because you like it does not mean that a lot of people likes it. As to reflect to your "Fact"s: "Fact" 0: In today's agility etc: this is mostly true for startups where you have a product owner who does not really know what he wants. If you use for example SCRUM you plan beforehand and you have an immutable sprint when you know what to work on thus you can work uninterrupted for 1-2 weeks then you can have a meeting to discuss the direction and have a retrospective + planning. The "work for 6 months in a basement" is an exaggeration and no one works like that today (except for the developer of Dwarf Fortress but it is another story). So the point is: you can be agile/rapid/do MVPs/etc and uninterrupted at the same time. I have done it at many companies so I know it works. "Fact" 1: Distractions have nothing to do with culture. People in an open office distract you simply because your preferences does not match: * switches off air conditioning * bumps your chair because of small spaces * turns on the lights (which you don't like) just to name a few. Another thing is that policies work in theory but in reality most people will think that their problem is more important than some policy and will go to your desk and ask about something (and in most cases the will know the answer when the have finished speaking). If you have a private office it acts as a barrier for such distractions.