8 ms·

5B for 13k employees - that's ~$384,000 in construction costs per head, operating and maintenance expenses are perhaps 5% of that annually (maybe more!) - taken

5B for 13k employees - that's ~$384,000 in construction costs per head, operating and maintenance expenses are perhaps 5% of that annually (maybe more!) - taken together this is an office building that's costing apple ~$3500/head/mo . It's a beautiful office, but seriously? Avg apple cash comp is what, 12500/mo? 3500 is almost 30% of that!

SA500 9y ago
Average Apple comp at HQ has to be a lot higher than that
flippyhead 9y ago
If what he did at Pixar is any guide, in theory the return on this investment isn't comparable to typical buildings.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  ? Steve Jobs from beyond the grave?
sametmax 9y ago
You are missing the point. It's only an office because apple is a company. That could have been the great pyramids, saint sophia or notre dame. Your calculations are off because you don't realize that while a lot of servants are enjoying their life in the castle, it's been built for the royal family and its court.
- dschep 9y ago
  Yup. It's a status symbol that happens to be an office space.
- Markoff 9y ago
  it's just massive boring circle and i can show you immediately dozen more interesting buildings now pyramids at the time of construction were massive engineering, this is just dumb boring building
  - kerbalspacepro 9y ago
    I can show you a dozen more interesting looking phones than an iPhone, but an iPhone is still an iPhone.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    "Massive" being the key word here.
- lvoudour 9y ago
  Couldn't tell if you are being sarcastic, so excuse me for answering like you're not. It doesn't match the artistic quality and cultural significance of st sophia or the pyramids, not even close. It's just a big glass and steel office space surrounded by a park. Sure the shape is not common, it's gonna have a few high-tech gimmicks and it carries the whole "apple" aesthetic, but it's rather blunt and feels generic (at least for me). Don't get me wrong, it's still a great project for what it is, just not the kind of project that you can call a monument a couple of centuries later
  - sametmax 9y ago
    > It doesn't match the artistic quality and cultural significance of st sophia or the pyramids That's what you think of it. But again, it's not been building for you. It's been built for the rich people at the top of Apple. It's massive. It's designed like an apple product. It fits their purpose of symbolism, the success of design and money, a place to put all their collections of brains for show. What you think of it, your taste, or any feeling you can have about it is completely insignificant to them. They have the exactly the pony they want. It represents exactly what they want it to, like said monument represented exactly what the people that paid for it wanted it to.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
visakanv 9y ago
5%? $250,000,000 a year to maintain a building? I don't know anything about building maintenance costs, but a quarter of a billion dollars a year seems a little excessive. How do you arrive at that figure?
- refurb 9y ago
  Seems high. For residential real estate, you usually estimate 1% of a home's cost. So for the campus it would be $50M per year, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
  - giarc 9y ago
    A lot of that would be energy costs as well, which the new building will have for much cheaper with the solar panels on the roof.
- pinot 9y ago
  Maintenance and operating. It's not far off.
djtriptych 9y ago
Remember that they're in one of the sunniest places in the US (at least during the summer) and are supposedly 100% self-contained renewable energy. Energy costs are typically, and by far, the lion's share of the operating costs of a major building like this.
- jonknee 9y ago
  There is a difference between sunny and hot. Cupertino has plenty of sunshine, but is not hot so doesn't require a ton of energy for cooling (the building doesn't even have AC!). If they were able to pull this off in say, Phoenix, it would be a lot more of a cost savings. > Jobs hated air-conditioning and especially loathed fans. (He vigilantly tried to keep them out of his computers.) But he also didn’t want people opening windows, so he insisted on natural ventilation, a building that breathes just like the people who work inside it.
  - djtriptych 9y ago
    Interesting. Still, the sunshine to energy need ratio in Cupertino seems to support low energy costs. Redwood City, just to the north, is famous for having the "best climate in the world" by WW2 era gov't test.
  - marze 9y ago
    The article mentioned in-floor heating/cooling hydronic loops.
metaphorm 9y ago
from the company's point of view it's not a cash spend on employee benefits (the way bonus pay would be) but rather investment into a capital asset. the building itself retains a large amount of value over time, and under the right circumstances might even appreciate in value.
- zeristor 9y ago
  It might appreciate in value, but you would still need someone willing to pay $5B+ for it.
jamesrcole 9y ago
> 5B for 13k employees - that's ~$384,000 in construction costs per head The building will cater for many more than that number of employees over its lifetime.
Denzel 9y ago
Except it makes more sense to depreciate over the useful life of the building (standard: 50 years) which brings you to a more reasonable ~$8k/year/employee cost of building use.
- dexterdog 9y ago
  If Apple is still a thing in 30 years do you think this will still be a cool place to be?
  - glhaynes 9y ago
    Apple will almost certainly still be a thing in 30 years. While it's hard to predict anything about fashion that far into the future, there are lots of buildings that are 30 or more years old that are cool places to be.
  - Denzel 9y ago
    That's the beautiful thing about depreciation, it doesn't really matter. Depreciation is just a way to see how costs are being allocated over time, more realistically. It allows you to predict how much you have left to recoup on capex projects. The real question (if you believe Apple will close down) is do you believe anyone will be interested in occupying the office space? Remember, the office could house more than one tenet. Or maybe they choose to offload the property in a sale. It's the same principle I use when negotiating gym rental contracts: Schools aren't using their gyms all the time. They have downtime, i.e., they're undersubscribed, so they offer hours for rent at marginal cost.
- Someone1234 9y ago
  > standard: 50 years According to this study[0] 50 years is the maximum lifespan of a commercial building, not the standard. Over 50% of demolished steel commercial buildings were under 25 years old. [0] PDF: http://cwc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DurabilityService_Life_E.pdf http://cwc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DurabilityService_L...
  - adventured 9y ago

SA500 9y ago

Average Apple comp at HQ has to be a lot higher than that

flippyhead 9y ago

If what he did at Pixar is any guide, in theory the return on this investment isn't comparable to typical buildings.

wavefunction 9y ago
? Steve Jobs from beyond the grave?

sametmax 9y ago

You are missing the point. It's only an office because apple is a company. That could have been the great pyramids, saint sophia or notre dame. Your calculations are off because you don't realize that while a lot of servants are enjoying their life in the castle, it's been built for the royal family and its court.

dschep 9y ago
Yup. It's a status symbol that happens to be an office space.
Markoff 9y ago
it's just massive boring circle and i can show you immediately dozen more interesting buildings now pyramids at the time of construction were massive engineering, this is just dumb boring building
- kerbalspacepro 9y ago
  I can show you a dozen more interesting looking phones than an iPhone, but an iPhone is still an iPhone.
- sametmax 9y ago
  "Massive" being the key word here.
lvoudour 9y ago
Couldn't tell if you are being sarcastic, so excuse me for answering like you're not. It doesn't match the artistic quality and cultural significance of st sophia or the pyramids, not even close. It's just a big glass and steel office space surrounded by a park. Sure the shape is not common, it's gonna have a few high-tech gimmicks and it carries the whole "apple" aesthetic, but it's rather blunt and feels generic (at least for me). Don't get me wrong, it's still a great project for what it is, just not the kind of project that you can call a monument a couple of centuries later
- sametmax 9y ago
  > It doesn't match the artistic quality and cultural significance of st sophia or the pyramids That's what you think of it. But again, it's not been building for you. It's been built for the rich people at the top of Apple. It's massive. It's designed like an apple product. It fits their purpose of symbolism, the success of design and money, a place to put all their collections of brains for show. What you think of it, your taste, or any feeling you can have about it is completely insignificant to them. They have the exactly the pony they want. It represents exactly what they want it to, like said monument represented exactly what the people that paid for it wanted it to.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

visakanv 9y ago

5%? $250,000,000 a year to maintain a building? I don't know anything about building maintenance costs, but a quarter of a billion dollars a year seems a little excessive. How do you arrive at that figure?

refurb 9y ago
Seems high. For residential real estate, you usually estimate 1% of a home's cost. So for the campus it would be $50M per year, which wouldn't surprise me in the least.
- giarc 9y ago
  A lot of that would be energy costs as well, which the new building will have for much cheaper with the solar panels on the roof.
pinot 9y ago
Maintenance and operating. It's not far off.

djtriptych 9y ago

Remember that they're in one of the sunniest places in the US (at least during the summer) and are supposedly 100% self-contained renewable energy. Energy costs are typically, and by far, the lion's share of the operating costs of a major building like this.

jonknee 9y ago
There is a difference between sunny and hot. Cupertino has plenty of sunshine, but is not hot so doesn't require a ton of energy for cooling (the building doesn't even have AC!). If they were able to pull this off in say, Phoenix, it would be a lot more of a cost savings. > Jobs hated air-conditioning and especially loathed fans. (He vigilantly tried to keep them out of his computers.) But he also didn’t want people opening windows, so he insisted on natural ventilation, a building that breathes just like the people who work inside it.
- djtriptych 9y ago
  Interesting. Still, the sunshine to energy need ratio in Cupertino seems to support low energy costs. Redwood City, just to the north, is famous for having the "best climate in the world" by WW2 era gov't test.
- marze 9y ago
  The article mentioned in-floor heating/cooling hydronic loops.

metaphorm 9y ago

from the company's point of view it's not a cash spend on employee benefits (the way bonus pay would be) but rather investment into a capital asset. the building itself retains a large amount of value over time, and under the right circumstances might even appreciate in value.

zeristor 9y ago
It might appreciate in value, but you would still need someone willing to pay $5B+ for it.

jamesrcole 9y ago

> 5B for 13k employees - that's ~$384,000 in construction costs per head The building will cater for many more than that number of employees over its lifetime.

Denzel 9y ago

Except it makes more sense to depreciate over the useful life of the building (standard: 50 years) which brings you to a more reasonable ~$8k/year/employee cost of building use.

dexterdog 9y ago
If Apple is still a thing in 30 years do you think this will still be a cool place to be?
- glhaynes 9y ago
  Apple will almost certainly still be a thing in 30 years. While it's hard to predict anything about fashion that far into the future, there are lots of buildings that are 30 or more years old that are cool places to be.
- Denzel 9y ago
  That's the beautiful thing about depreciation, it doesn't really matter. Depreciation is just a way to see how costs are being allocated over time, more realistically. It allows you to predict how much you have left to recoup on capex projects. The real question (if you believe Apple will close down) is do you believe anyone will be interested in occupying the office space? Remember, the office could house more than one tenet. Or maybe they choose to offload the property in a sale. It's the same principle I use when negotiating gym rental contracts: Schools aren't using their gyms all the time. They have downtime, i.e., they're undersubscribed, so they offer hours for rent at marginal cost.
Someone1234 9y ago
> standard: 50 years According to this study[0] 50 years is the maximum lifespan of a commercial building, not the standard. Over 50% of demolished steel commercial buildings were under 25 years old. [0] PDF: http://cwc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DurabilityService_Life_E.pdf http://cwc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DurabilityService_L...
- adventured 9y ago