This is my thinking as well. I think this is further proof that business culture from top to bottom is dictated by what the upper level guys and gals want for themselves, and not via this hard nosed skepticism and productivity research. They're all type-A social manipulators and go-getters. They have little to nothing in common with the type-b geeky introverts that actually do the tech work.
"I want to see my fucking employees and grab them at any time," is the thinking here. Our productivity and comfort? They don't really matter because the competitors are doing the same thing. There's nowhere to flee to. There's no winning other than clawing your way up to management and hoping to god you can still do tech work once you get there.
This is always why I'm never shocked to hear about video games or operating systems or huge pieces of software written by one guy, alone, in a quiet space. Of course you can do those things when you have the proper space and drive. This is also how novels get written for that matter. Can you imagine writing novels the way we're making software? They'd never get done and the ones that do would just be terrible.
"I want to see my fucking employees and grab them at any time," is the thinking here. Our productivity and comfort? They don't really matter because the competitors are doing the same thing. There's nowhere to flee to. There's no winning other than clawing your way up to management and hoping to god you can still do tech work once you get there.
This is always why I'm never shocked to hear about video games or operating systems or huge pieces of software written by one guy, alone, in a quiet space. Of course you can do those things when you have the proper space and drive. This is also how novels get written for that matter. Can you imagine writing novels the way we're making software? They'd never get done and the ones that do would just be terrible.