Going back to the ad agency chat: Too funny. I have only ever heard of partners being hired in agencies for a long time, but I know some single creatives are hired too. It was especially common at junior level to be a team hire. It goes back decades that if you hire a team you know they are going to get along rather than being stuck with someone that the writer cannot bounce off and vice versa. Ideas come much quicker as a duo, and you edit each other quickly which saves a LOT of time when meeting the director. Moving up the ladder you do set off on your own to get into more senior management/director roles. An ex works for Ogilvy (was O&M back then), so unless agencies have changed strategy in the past decade (easily so since everything else changes), that is how it is/was done in a lot of places. I know Saatchi used to be an agency that would ONLY hire junior teams and everyone would scramble to be a team rather than a single. I have no idea if that is still true, but it must still happen since Becky and Han got hired as a team. I think they met on Single Creatives because Becky couldn't find a partner at uni. No surprise there. I am shocked she has worked for good agencies, so Han must be carrying the weight (pardon the pun) for her if she isn't up to par. It's hard to think she is anywhere near par based on her YT channel.
People that I went to art school with are still in their ad agency partnerships *cough mumble many* decades later. I chose to go into publishing (don't do it kids), and I met my editor partner at work. We left the company to become freelance so it's very common to present yourself as a self employed team to work on a project.