Often companies actually do care more about optics than productivity. I’ve definitely worked in large, successful companies where wearing the skinny jeans and drinking the smoothie are vastly more important than your productivity most of the time.

Another big, obvious manifestation of this is open-plan offices.

“Does working in a noisy, open space that doesn’t actually save significant money relative to engineer salaries and lost productivity matter when you have a mile long back log?”

Yes, as it turns out, displaying the optics of looking visually like a hip start-up stereotype does matter more than the mile long back log.