Google has been getting steadily stingier with personal space for a long time. My last job there was at Crittenden, and the desks were next to each other with no dividers whatsoever. That was the worst of my twelve or so locations, by far. But this really takes the prize.

Personal story: in the 1980's I had about a half hour interview with Eric Schmidt, at Sun (yes, that Eric Schmidt). The one thing I remember is, he said that if you looked at the cost for private offices vs. cubicles, they were about the same, and that must be the case because the market will equilibrate. This was at a time when private offices still existed.

I don't think Google's Real Estate division got the message.