4 ms·

Like Aeron chairs and catered meals. Things that were considered excessive are quite common at tech companies.

by adrr 7y ago

triceratops 7y ago
I've never understood why Aeron chairs are considered excessive in the US. They cost like $600, or one month's health insurance costs to the company, last for years, and have a decent resale value. Even for a company paying $20/hr (bare minimum for a desk job), that comes out to less than 1 week's wages.
- ghaff 7y ago
  I've had an Aeron chair at home for about 15 years. Paid for it myself. I'd guess it's a pretty good purchase on a per hour basis. (Especially as they did a warranty repair at about the 8 year point.)
  - piva00 7y ago
    I've had mine for about 9 years, also paid for it myself. It's been one of my best purchases in terms of ROI. Used it almost daily when I worked remotely for a couple of years and it's the only piece of furniture I brought with me when moving abroad some 5 years ago, I'm sitting on it right now and it rolls around as smoothly as when I got it, all the adjustments are working flawlessly and the only damage it has are some minor cosmetic ones.
- shagie 7y ago
  Its not that they were excessive... and they do last for years. Its that immediately after getting funding the startups of the period immediately spent a good chunk of it on high end quality of life items. The most visible was the chair. And they weren't that cheap then either (they're much less expensive now - in 2000, the chair was $1100 - which is $1650 in today's money. I can find a new Aeron chair for about half that and a refurbished one for a quarter) https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/21364/ https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/21364/ > Aerons were hailed as triumphs of industrial design and were a whole different beast from the overstuffed leather power chairs that dominated the Old Economy. “They’re not in my mind an example of hubris as much as they are an example of companies trying to treat their staff more generously than they could actually afford,” says information architect Chris Fahey. They were the most visible symbol of the excesses of the dot com startup office. The new pool table, the foosball table, ping pong table, espresso machines in the break room in the office that they just moved into. The chair is the one that people can point to being common to everything (and was also part of the stuff that was getting sold after the 95% layoff). These are not companies that had lasted years to get the value out of the chair but rather in the range of months to a few years. They were spending money like it was free in hopes to get acquired before they had to sell it all and try again. The chair? I love it and I would have seriously considered (gulp) another a month or so ago instead of a different mesh chair if I had realized that the refurbished ones were as affordable as they are.
  - twic 7y ago
    > information architect Chris Fahey Speaking of blasts from the past - when was the last time you saw an information architect?
    - pavlov 7y ago
      An absence sorely felt in most apps and websites one has to deal with today.
- onion2k 7y ago
  The traditional business mindset says that fancy offices with Aeron chairs are things you buy using profits. If you're not making a profit then everything you do should be laser focused on making more revenue to eventually turn a profit. While VC money obviously existed before the dotcom era, it was usually to buy expensive equipment or to do research - it was never really spent on offices. Consequently when dotcom businesses started landing million dollar seed rounds and spending that money on things that weren't directly revenue generating, or even necessary, people thought it was being wasted. And, given the number of dotcom startups compared to the number of successes, it kind of was. If those startups had been focused more on making a profit instead of unmeasured 'growth' or some strange notion of 'coolness' then maybe more of them would have survived.
covidacct 7y ago
I've never understood why high-quality chairs were ever symbols of excess. Ask anyone with bad sciatica how much they spend on PT a year. It's probably several multiples of the cost of a good chair. Then ask how much more they would spend to make the pain go away. It'll probably be some nontrivial fraction of their net worth. Bad back pain really takes the joy out of life. Office people who make fun of good chairs are the whitecollar equivalent of shop/factory people who make fun of hearing protection.

Like Aeron chairs and catered meals. Things that were considered excessive are quite common at tech companies.

by adrr 7y ago

Like Aeron chairs and catered meals. Things that were considered excessive are quite common at tech companies.

I've never understood why Aeron chairs are considered excessive in the US. They cost like $600, or one month's health insurance costs to the company, last for years, and have a decent resale value. Even for a company paying $20/hr (bare minimum for a desk job), that comes out to less than 1 week's wages.

ghaff 7y ago
I've had an Aeron chair at home for about 15 years. Paid for it myself. I'd guess it's a pretty good purchase on a per hour basis. (Especially as they did a warranty repair at about the 8 year point.)
- piva00 7y ago
  I've had mine for about 9 years, also paid for it myself. It's been one of my best purchases in terms of ROI. Used it almost daily when I worked remotely for a couple of years and it's the only piece of furniture I brought with me when moving abroad some 5 years ago, I'm sitting on it right now and it rolls around as smoothly as when I got it, all the adjustments are working flawlessly and the only damage it has are some minor cosmetic ones.
shagie 7y ago
Its not that they were excessive... and they do last for years. Its that immediately after getting funding the startups of the period immediately spent a good chunk of it on high end quality of life items. The most visible was the chair. And they weren't that cheap then either (they're much less expensive now - in 2000, the chair was $1100 - which is $1650 in today's money. I can find a new Aeron chair for about half that and a refurbished one for a quarter) https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/21364/ https://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/21364/ > Aerons were hailed as triumphs of industrial design and were a whole different beast from the overstuffed leather power chairs that dominated the Old Economy. “They’re not in my mind an example of hubris as much as they are an example of companies trying to treat their staff more generously than they could actually afford,” says information architect Chris Fahey. They were the most visible symbol of the excesses of the dot com startup office. The new pool table, the foosball table, ping pong table, espresso machines in the break room in the office that they just moved into. The chair is the one that people can point to being common to everything (and was also part of the stuff that was getting sold after the 95% layoff). These are not companies that had lasted years to get the value out of the chair but rather in the range of months to a few years. They were spending money like it was free in hopes to get acquired before they had to sell it all and try again. The chair? I love it and I would have seriously considered (gulp) another a month or so ago instead of a different mesh chair if I had realized that the refurbished ones were as affordable as they are.
- twic 7y ago
  > information architect Chris Fahey Speaking of blasts from the past - when was the last time you saw an information architect?
  - pavlov 7y ago
    An absence sorely felt in most apps and websites one has to deal with today.
onion2k 7y ago
The traditional business mindset says that fancy offices with Aeron chairs are things you buy using profits. If you're not making a profit then everything you do should be laser focused on making more revenue to eventually turn a profit. While VC money obviously existed before the dotcom era, it was usually to buy expensive equipment or to do research - it was never really spent on offices. Consequently when dotcom businesses started landing million dollar seed rounds and spending that money on things that weren't directly revenue generating, or even necessary, people thought it was being wasted. And, given the number of dotcom startups compared to the number of successes, it kind of was. If those startups had been focused more on making a profit instead of unmeasured 'growth' or some strange notion of 'coolness' then maybe more of them would have survived.

covidacct 7y ago

I've never understood why high-quality chairs were ever symbols of excess. Ask anyone with bad sciatica how much they spend on PT a year. It's probably several multiples of the cost of a good chair. Then ask how much more they would spend to make the pain go away. It'll probably be some nontrivial fraction of their net worth. Bad back pain really takes the joy out of life. Office people who make fun of good chairs are the whitecollar equivalent of shop/factory people who make fun of hearing protection.