From the book Innovators by Walter Isaacson:
Even though the Internet provided a tool for virtual and distant collaboration, another lesson of digital-age innovation is that, now as in the past, physical proximity is beneficial. There is something special, as evidenced at Bell Labs, about meeting in the flesh, which cannot be replicated digitally.
The founders of Intel created a sprawling, team-oriented open workspace where employees from Noyce on down all rubbed against one another. It was a model that became common in Silicon Valley. Predictions that digital tools would allow workers to telecommute were never fully realized.
One of Marissa Mayer’s first acts as CEO of Yahoo was to discourage the practice of working from home, rightly pointing out that “people are more collaborative and innovative when they’re together.”
When Steve Jobs designed a new headquarters for Pixar, he obsessed over ways to structure the atrium, and even where to locate the bathrooms, so that serendipitous personal encounters would occur. Among his last creations was the plan for Apple’s new signature headquarters, a circle with rings of open workspaces surrounding a central courtyard.
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