Open layouts sure are popular in tech, but they often feel like a “people factory,” Braintree CEO Bill Ready said this month. To produce a collaborative environment without creating a “sea of people,” the San Francisco mobile payments company used an open layout with a twist: “We wanted to keep that feel of the small autonomous team that’s just very tuned in to what they’re building, who they’re building it for, who their customer is, what’s their mission,” Ready said.