5 ms·

It's still a car focused suburban office park with an open office floor plan... No amount of love is going to change the fundamentals.

asimpletune 9y ago
I definitely agree with your car comment, and to that point would temper that statement by cautioning not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Cars are, presently, an unavoidable fact of life. This is a shame, but all else considered it's the best possible outcome with the present circumstances. Things will improve however, one day. About the open office plan, I don't think that's the case at all. I don't know if we know enough about it to say, but I think enough is known to say it has a prototypical open office floor plan. Maybe if one were to be overly technical and argue that it is technically "open" then I would have no choice but to agree, however that's not really a common sense way of looking at things. It looks like the pods resemble something more akin to how whales organize. Plus I can't believe they'd spend so much time designing the hardware without giving the software some thought, if my analogy makes sense.
- jonknee 9y ago
  > Cars are, presently, an unavoidable fact of life. This is a shame, but all else considered it's the best possible outcome with the present circumstances. Things will improve however, one day. Indeed, I am currently looking out my window at several Amazon office towers that most employees didn't drive to.
  - asimpletune 9y ago
    That sounds wonderful, a similar situation here in SF.
  - valuearb 9y ago
    Thats what you think.
  - kerbalspacepro 9y ago
    why do my packages keep getting to my house a day earlier than i expect?
- valuearb 9y ago
  It absolutely does not have an open floor plan. The pods are 1-2 person offices with sliding glass doors so you can work quietly.
Someone1234 9y ago
I agree with your car point. The problem is we current have three choices: - Cars - "Company Store"-style housing (e.g. get fired, get made homeless) - Good public transport. The third option is obviously the best but it is outside of any single company's control. To get good quality public transport the entire city (or cities) need to be onboard, invest sometimes billions of dollars, and likely run it at a near loss (since most public transport systems lose money). If someone knows of an alternative not listed above, I'd like to read about it. And, no, automated vehicles aren't an alternative because they don't actually exist in production yet.
- 3stripe 9y ago
  - Bicycles.
- Arizhel 9y ago
  They could build SkyTran. It's perfectly suited for the Bay Area. The tech companies together could easily invest in it and bring it to fruition; the fundamental technology is already developed. The other thing they can do is what Google does: buy their own buses and bus in some of the employees from key locations. It's not exactly "public transport", but it's pretty close, and doesn't make anyone homeless if they lose their job there, and it wouldn't cost the company much, while it'd save a lot of cars from pouring emissions into the air every day.
  - ac29 9y ago
    > The other thing they can do is what Google does: buy their own buses and bus in some of the employees from key locations. They do that already. I work down the street from the current Apple headquarters and the sheer amount of Apple buses during commute hours is insane. They must come every few minutes from 8-10a and 4-7p or so, because its rare for me to see less than 2 or 3 within a couple blocks of HQ during those hours.
- jonknee 9y ago
  Or a fourth option of not building an office for 12,000 people in a suburban area. It's literally across the street from single family homes and there is not a tall building anywhere close to the campus.
kylec 9y ago
Not everyone dislikes "car focused suburban office parks". Many people, myself included, prefer them. I love being able to get in my car and arrive at work in 10 minutes. I love living in an area where I can drive to and park at restaurants, grocery stores, etc.
- asimpletune 9y ago
  Why would anyone doenvote this? They're simply expressing their preference, it's within their right.
arrrg 9y ago
The personal spaces inside the pods seem to provide space for at most two people if they were working there constantly (two tables on either side). There are walls on three sides and a glass wall with door on the fourth. So that’s not really an open office floor plan.
valuearb 9y ago
It's not an open floor plan.

asimpletune 9y ago

I definitely agree with your car comment, and to that point would temper that statement by cautioning not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Cars are, presently, an unavoidable fact of life. This is a shame, but all else considered it's the best possible outcome with the present circumstances. Things will improve however, one day. About the open office plan, I don't think that's the case at all. I don't know if we know enough about it to say, but I think enough is known to say it has a prototypical open office floor plan. Maybe if one were to be overly technical and argue that it is technically "open" then I would have no choice but to agree, however that's not really a common sense way of looking at things. It looks like the pods resemble something more akin to how whales organize. Plus I can't believe they'd spend so much time designing the hardware without giving the software some thought, if my analogy makes sense.

jonknee 9y ago
> Cars are, presently, an unavoidable fact of life. This is a shame, but all else considered it's the best possible outcome with the present circumstances. Things will improve however, one day. Indeed, I am currently looking out my window at several Amazon office towers that most employees didn't drive to.
- asimpletune 9y ago
  That sounds wonderful, a similar situation here in SF.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Thats what you think.
- kerbalspacepro 9y ago
  why do my packages keep getting to my house a day earlier than i expect?
valuearb 9y ago
It absolutely does not have an open floor plan. The pods are 1-2 person offices with sliding glass doors so you can work quietly.

Someone1234 9y ago

I agree with your car point. The problem is we current have three choices: - Cars - "Company Store"-style housing (e.g. get fired, get made homeless) - Good public transport. The third option is obviously the best but it is outside of any single company's control. To get good quality public transport the entire city (or cities) need to be onboard, invest sometimes billions of dollars, and likely run it at a near loss (since most public transport systems lose money). If someone knows of an alternative not listed above, I'd like to read about it. And, no, automated vehicles aren't an alternative because they don't actually exist in production yet.

3stripe 9y ago
- Bicycles.
Arizhel 9y ago
They could build SkyTran. It's perfectly suited for the Bay Area. The tech companies together could easily invest in it and bring it to fruition; the fundamental technology is already developed. The other thing they can do is what Google does: buy their own buses and bus in some of the employees from key locations. It's not exactly "public transport", but it's pretty close, and doesn't make anyone homeless if they lose their job there, and it wouldn't cost the company much, while it'd save a lot of cars from pouring emissions into the air every day.
- ac29 9y ago
  > The other thing they can do is what Google does: buy their own buses and bus in some of the employees from key locations. They do that already. I work down the street from the current Apple headquarters and the sheer amount of Apple buses during commute hours is insane. They must come every few minutes from 8-10a and 4-7p or so, because its rare for me to see less than 2 or 3 within a couple blocks of HQ during those hours.
jonknee 9y ago
Or a fourth option of not building an office for 12,000 people in a suburban area. It's literally across the street from single family homes and there is not a tall building anywhere close to the campus.

kylec 9y ago

Not everyone dislikes "car focused suburban office parks". Many people, myself included, prefer them. I love being able to get in my car and arrive at work in 10 minutes. I love living in an area where I can drive to and park at restaurants, grocery stores, etc.

asimpletune 9y ago
Why would anyone doenvote this? They're simply expressing their preference, it's within their right.

arrrg 9y ago

The personal spaces inside the pods seem to provide space for at most two people if they were working there constantly (two tables on either side). There are walls on three sides and a glass wall with door on the fourth. So that’s not really an open office floor plan.

valuearb 9y ago

It's not an open floor plan.