I worked at Apple during the second, golden Steve Jobs era. It's easy to assume that the culture of secrecy and need-to-know disclosure was for marketing/PR benefit and/or old-school Silicon Valley "only the paranoid survive" mindset, and perhaps that's true, but a very real side effect is that you have very tight loops of communication, so you can focus and move quickly without being stuck in tons of meetings or drown in mass emails or otherwise become easily distracted. Of course there are downsides, but when it works, it's beautiful. It's the best "case against collaboration" I have experienced.
quesera|3 years ago
Steve Jobs is also famous for promoting work spaces / floor plans designed to encourage serendipitous (or at least spontaneous) interactions between people and groups. Notably at Pixar, but then again at Apple Park.
There's a tension between the two. Probably the "ideal", if such a thing could exist at all, varies between individuals and teams, the nature of their work, and over time.
This is a completely boring idea though, one which will inspire no blog posts!