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In Palo Alto, Google/Apple Would Have Been Evicted from Their Garage Offices
- autotune 10y agoWhy not just work "remotely?" Everyone meets up at coffee shop or something at the start of the day and at the end of the day to discuss and review action items, and then communicates via tools like Slack and Google Hangouts. As a bonus, you also start a culture where you can hire employees from anywhere in the U.S. (or "world", if you decide to go the global route) since working remotely becomes the norm.
- a_small_island 10y agoDon't make it obvious and sit in front your entire team in front of a window? Why is a neighbor "crazy" for not wanting a business run out of an adjacent apartment? Meh.
- mathattack 10y agoNeighbors don't like it because it impacts property values to be in commercial areas. (Strange people around who don't have kids) Of course worrying about protecting property value in Palo Alto is a little absurd.
- baltcode 10y agoWhy not go work in cities that don't mind building vertically and having mixed use zoning? A lot of people like urban living.
- contingencies 10y agoYeah. Writing from front-window home-office here: I live in China. The windows is open and the view is greenery, there are birds chirping, with only distant hum from city noise, and the occasional walker-by. Every time my brother, an urban designer, comes to visit he comments on how intelligent and high-density the cities are here. Very human scale, though they're losing a lot to cars these days. Hanoi is another great one. Anyway our team is 3 right now, we use the lounge room and large TV for meetings and stuff, the office is mostly heads-down space and storage. The last company I started here in China about 8 years ago was in a similar (ground floor, 3 bedroom) apartment, and we had something like 10 people at times. Never any complaints. I lived there too initially, but moved out to dedicate the space to the company after awhile.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoI don't see why they couldn't have gone to any of the dozens of other municipalities in the region.
- aphextron 10y agoSure they could also go start their business in the middle of Kansas, too. However, There is a huge benefit to being centrally located in Silicon Valley
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoIf they wanted to be centrally located, they should have been in Sunnyvale or something instead of Palo Alto.
- nitwit005 10y agoI imagine it's illegal most places. Even without a zoning violation, garages tend not to meet basic habitability rules.