During the 1960s, the coffee cart at HP rolled around at 10:15 every morning. All the engineers drank coffee and casually discussed top-of-mind issues. It was a goldmine condition that generated spontaneous collaborative advances. A lot of problems got unstuck at the coffee cart. In the 1970s, cost-cutting decisions were made to replace the coffee cart with a self-service coffee pot on the counter in the mini kitchen. Engineers still took a break to get coffee but not at the same time. No more set coffee break, no more spontaneous brainstorming. Gone were the unplanned collaborative
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