I disagree with some of this list. Having never started a company but worked at a few, here's my opinionated and uninformed rant. Picking your own email addres

I disagree with some of this list. Having never started a company but worked at a few, here's my opinionated and uninformed rant. Picking your own email address and hostname sounds fine in theory, but as the company grows, having a naming scheme like first initial last name lets you email people easily without having to remember the format that they chose. Plus it means that the first few employees get all of the cool email addresses (dave@example.com, etc), and it's hard to change emails down the line. And no vacation policy sounds nice in practice, especially as an employer (we're all adults, be responsible), but it falls apart quickly especially if people are workaholics and don't take vacations. I have trouble taking vacation as it is, with no defined policy, I basically don't. It would be even harder if my boss didn't take vacations. Now, this isn't my employer's fault directly, but I would prefer a defined vacation policy with a no sick day policy (or better yet - "if you're sick at all, don't come to work or you're fired") and an understanding of short term tradeoffs for when you do things like pull all nighters. Company credit card is great. I'd even go so far as to say tell every person - here's $500 to spend each year making yourself more productive. Then let people (subject to approval) buy whatever they want. As for a clear salary system - in theory, sounds reasonable, but you have to be flexible with salary since you don't want to lose good developers because your "culture" says you can't pay someone an extra $5k/year. And if you start making exceptions, I think that's worse, since it gets perceived as favoritism. At the same time, that salary talk should happen twice a year, no exceptions. There should also be performance reviews every six months, and the performance reviews and salary conversations should not be the same thing (since otherwise I think people will just wait to answer the question of "am I getting a raise" and ignore the rest). Quality furniture and office space and pick your own computers - very yes. Again, I'd say - here are some recommended/common setups, but here's $5k (or more) to spend on your office. Also, quiet space is so important, I hate open offices. If you're a small company, you take what you can get, but once you are big, at the very least have pair offices. Distraction due to random noise costs me days of productivity, and I'm generally pretty focused. I have a Herman Miller Embody at work, oh god that chair is awesome. Snacks - I really like free lunches, not for the financial benefit because I figure it comes out of my salary anyway, but because it means I can get healthy food and I don't have to think about it. Also, get healthy office snacks as well as a bit of junk food. Hours - I tend to work in long periods of high productivity followed by long periods of low productivity, so my work hours fluctuate a lot. I have friend however that works at a company that is quite strict about 9:30-6:00pm every day (as in, get in slightly before 9:30 ever day, and everyone is out before 6:00pm), which seems reasonable. I think that in a lot of companies where people are at work for 12 hours a day, they're not doing 12 hours of work but filling time to save face. So having never experienced a more strictly regimented day, I think that it might be interesting.