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That looks like a pretty impressive office. It sounds like a successful recruiting tool; I would definitely like working in that environment. What other compan

That looks like a pretty impressive office. It sounds like a successful recruiting tool; I would definitely like working in that environment. What other companies put that much attention towards work environment? I know that a lot of popular startups tend to favor communal environments, but seeing actual offices is pretty rare. All of the places I've worked at tend to fall somewhere between decent to hellish cube nightmare.

iron_ball 18y ago
How do we resolve "offices with doors that close" with "communal work environment" anyway? Are they just diametrically opposed office philosphies?
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  Here's the suggestion from Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn: The best adaptation I've seen of the open-office idea is a partial retreat from it. People crave acoustic privacy so they can talk on the telephone, but visual privacy is not as important -- they like being able to see what's going on. This has led to a very satisfactory compromise called "cave and commons". Each office worker has a private office, often small, which opens into a generous open area surrounded by many other private offices. The open area has a kitchen, some couches, sometimes tables for sitting around informally, and sometimes a working library, or at least a rack of current periodicals. You can shut the door of your cave and concentrate, or you can leave your door open and keep an eye and ear on who's coming and going in the commons, and whether the meeting or presentation going on there might be worth leaning in on. The feeling is congenial and homey, and it encourages the casual encounters which, research keeps showing, are at the heart of creativity in offices. I lived in a dorm designed like this for four years of college. I'm not sure I've ever been as productive since. ;) I would not be surprised to learn that Spolsky has read Brand's book. He's certainly got the idea. Note the emphasis on glass in the Fog Creek offices, providing acoustic privacy but not visual isolation.
  - pmorici 18y ago
    Interesting Stewart Brand documentary on the utility of buildings. http://smashingtelly.com/2008/08/04/how-buildings-learn-uploaded-by-stewart-brand-himself/ http://smashingtelly.com/2008/08/04/how-buildings-learn-uplo...
    - mechanical_fish 18y ago
      Good god, I've got to forget that exists immediately so I can keep working. ;) Thanks for the link!
- brl 18y ago
  I will never EVER work in a communal work environment again. I can only work in a space somewhere between an 'office with a closed door' and a sensory deprivation tank.
  - gamache 18y ago
    Agreed -- I might be a fancy typist when you get right down to it, but that doesn't mean I want to work in a typing pool.
- jon_dahl 18y ago
  I've spent way too much time thinking about this question over the years for my small teams. My conclusion is that neither is perfect, but the best options are: -- Open work space for 3-6 people, IF everyone is working on the same project, IF everyone is committed to doing good work (and won't be surfing YouTube throughout the day), IF there are quite/private places to retreat to for phone calls and solo problem solving, and IF the configuration doesn't stay the same for years. Many people report being more productive for short periods with this sort of arrangement. Bonus: pair programming seems to lead to a different sort of "flow" than solo programming, which is more amenable to an open work space. -- Offices with a door for everything else. The upside of offices with a door: reduced interruptions, which are the bane of complex programming. (Try solving a really really hard problem with the threat of interruptions constantly on your mind. Not actual interruptions - just the threat, or memory, of interruptions.) The downside: teams have to be more deliberate in fostering team communication. The "cave and commons" (elsewhere in this discussion) seems like a good compromise. Even better, in my opinion, would be a modular space where teams could work together some of the time in an open war room, during some phases of development, and where they could work privately during other phases. But that's not easy to find.
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Cave and Commons is the way to go, as several other posters pointed out. I'd like to add the critical factor: team size. Once team size gets too large (say over 8-10 people) random noise and distractions take over. I've seen teams of 30 try to do collocated, collaborative work environments and it just falls apart. At that size, the best I've seen so far is cubes, "study hall" and private rooms. That is, cubes for \half the day, a group "study hall" type atmosphere for the other half, and easily available small group work rooms. By "study hall", I don't mean a bunch of people being quiet, just a bunch of people in the same area working on group/individual tasks. There's an interesting phenomenon that goes on in collaborative work spaces. Many times programmers get lots of benefits from working together but still would rather be left alone. So many times the team requires time that it works together, say for a couple of hours every morning, like it or not. Not everybody likes it so much. Many times there's a gap between "the way I like working" and "the way that I work that is the most productive" Just goes to show that programming is not a technical exercise, as much as we like to talk functional code, security, and all the other bits and bytes bullshit. It's a human activity, and full of the irrational and quirky nuances that comes from working with hominids.
Andys 18y ago
I look at it and almost weep - but I feel like its TOO good. I've grown accustomed to the start-up feel of making do with what you have, spending big on a few items (chair, monitor) and having everything else made of cardboard..
bemmu 18y ago
Definitely. I even showed my developer friend the pictures and ended up explaining what Fog Creek does.

iron_ball 18y ago

How do we resolve "offices with doors that close" with "communal work environment" anyway? Are they just diametrically opposed office philosphies?

mechanical_fish 18y ago
Here's the suggestion from Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn: The best adaptation I've seen of the open-office idea is a partial retreat from it. People crave acoustic privacy so they can talk on the telephone, but visual privacy is not as important -- they like being able to see what's going on. This has led to a very satisfactory compromise called "cave and commons". Each office worker has a private office, often small, which opens into a generous open area surrounded by many other private offices. The open area has a kitchen, some couches, sometimes tables for sitting around informally, and sometimes a working library, or at least a rack of current periodicals. You can shut the door of your cave and concentrate, or you can leave your door open and keep an eye and ear on who's coming and going in the commons, and whether the meeting or presentation going on there might be worth leaning in on. The feeling is congenial and homey, and it encourages the casual encounters which, research keeps showing, are at the heart of creativity in offices. I lived in a dorm designed like this for four years of college. I'm not sure I've ever been as productive since. ;) I would not be surprised to learn that Spolsky has read Brand's book. He's certainly got the idea. Note the emphasis on glass in the Fog Creek offices, providing acoustic privacy but not visual isolation.
- pmorici 18y ago
  Interesting Stewart Brand documentary on the utility of buildings. http://smashingtelly.com/2008/08/04/how-buildings-learn-uploaded-by-stewart-brand-himself/ http://smashingtelly.com/2008/08/04/how-buildings-learn-uplo...
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago
    Good god, I've got to forget that exists immediately so I can keep working. ;) Thanks for the link!
brl 18y ago
I will never EVER work in a communal work environment again. I can only work in a space somewhere between an 'office with a closed door' and a sensory deprivation tank.
- gamache 18y ago
  Agreed -- I might be a fancy typist when you get right down to it, but that doesn't mean I want to work in a typing pool.
jon_dahl 18y ago
I've spent way too much time thinking about this question over the years for my small teams. My conclusion is that neither is perfect, but the best options are: -- Open work space for 3-6 people, IF everyone is working on the same project, IF everyone is committed to doing good work (and won't be surfing YouTube throughout the day), IF there are quite/private places to retreat to for phone calls and solo problem solving, and IF the configuration doesn't stay the same for years. Many people report being more productive for short periods with this sort of arrangement. Bonus: pair programming seems to lead to a different sort of "flow" than solo programming, which is more amenable to an open work space. -- Offices with a door for everything else. The upside of offices with a door: reduced interruptions, which are the bane of complex programming. (Try solving a really really hard problem with the threat of interruptions constantly on your mind. Not actual interruptions - just the threat, or memory, of interruptions.) The downside: teams have to be more deliberate in fostering team communication. The "cave and commons" (elsewhere in this discussion) seems like a good compromise. Even better, in my opinion, would be a modular space where teams could work together some of the time in an open war room, during some phases of development, and where they could work privately during other phases. But that's not easy to find.
DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Cave and Commons is the way to go, as several other posters pointed out. I'd like to add the critical factor: team size. Once team size gets too large (say over 8-10 people) random noise and distractions take over. I've seen teams of 30 try to do collocated, collaborative work environments and it just falls apart. At that size, the best I've seen so far is cubes, "study hall" and private rooms. That is, cubes for \half the day, a group "study hall" type atmosphere for the other half, and easily available small group work rooms. By "study hall", I don't mean a bunch of people being quiet, just a bunch of people in the same area working on group/individual tasks. There's an interesting phenomenon that goes on in collaborative work spaces. Many times programmers get lots of benefits from working together but still would rather be left alone. So many times the team requires time that it works together, say for a couple of hours every morning, like it or not. Not everybody likes it so much. Many times there's a gap between "the way I like working" and "the way that I work that is the most productive" Just goes to show that programming is not a technical exercise, as much as we like to talk functional code, security, and all the other bits and bytes bullshit. It's a human activity, and full of the irrational and quirky nuances that comes from working with hominids.

Andys 18y ago

I look at it and almost weep - but I feel like its TOO good. I've grown accustomed to the start-up feel of making do with what you have, spending big on a few items (chair, monitor) and having everything else made of cardboard..

bemmu 18y ago

Definitely. I even showed my developer friend the pictures and ended up explaining what Fog Creek does.