Agreed, it looks absolutely miserable. I would really like to see an end to the era of open work spaces, or at least shared desks. Is anyone aware of a study comparing the productivity of developers in these types environments to ones that provide a little privacy?

Absolutely, there is a way to do "open floorplans" right, and that right there is not it. Bigger desks and even some spacing away from neighbors is critical. The style of open floorplan in that picture seems more suited for a call center.

(please please HN, let's not turn this into another open floorplan vs office discussion)

And laptop on a silly stand right in front of every person, while they have two perfectly fine screens and separate mouse and keyboard.