Here's how it goes where I work: - Someone needs something - They ask for it - The company buys it. I haven't asked for one laptop per year because I don't

Here's how it goes where I work: - Someone needs something - They ask for it - The company buys it. I haven't asked for one laptop per year because I don't think a few CPU clocks will improve my productivity that much. However, couches, nice chairs, books, headsets, screens, good lighting, flexibility with respect to life, bonuses, careful hiring not to mess the team, a view on a mediterranean port in a country that's pretty much sunny most of the year, transparency, inclusion in everything, alignment, and working on interesting problems improves retention and productivity. We buy good laptops according to the tastes of our people. One engineer could not use a laptop that didn't have a nipple/joystick/pointing stick (Thinkpad). Although it was strange, that's what the engineer got. However, there are things where we notice latent demand and we don't wait for someone to ask. For example, we had one couch. We found that everyone wanted to use the couch and there would be a game of dibs, so we bought more couches. Bear in mind that we had a period of struggle and we went cockroach mode. Everyone knew it and everyone knew we couldn't afford stuff, but there was acceptance because the information was out there. The rationale behind not buying something was communicated: the money is tight. We'd buy that if he had more, and we did buy when we had more.