3 ms·

This is great - in theory. Let me bring up something which the article brings up right away but none of the comments seem to discuss. Look at it from the star

by nlh 13y ago

This is great - in theory. Let me bring up something which the article brings up right away but none of the comments seem to discuss. Look at it from the startup's side of things: The ideal office that we'd all love to work in - that perfect 4-6 person bullpen with private offices surrounding (x number of 4-6 person teams), is _expensive_. Very few companies can afford a build-out like this until much much later in company-life. If we're talking about an Apple or Google, fine - let's have the debate. But for a vast majority of early-stage startups, this simply isn't a viable discussion to have. Office space is very limited in many parts of the big tech hubs, and often it's a matter of just getting an affordable space in the first place, much less being able to build out the perfect working environment. And the fact of the matter is, most spaces are open and filled with $200 IKEA tables because that's all the company can afford. So I'm not sure what the answer is. On the one hand, you can say "well, budget more for office space", but we all know it's not that easy. It's not a small expense -- big buildouts for private offices costs tens of thousands of dollars (or more), precious capital for a small business.

RHSeeger 13y ago
> The ideal office that we'd all love to work in - that perfect 4-6 person bullpen with private offices surrounding Not all of us. My (and I assume many others) ideal office is a room with a door, with my computer hooked up to 2-3 monitors and a bunch of other things I find useful to my work. Moving out of the open space to a side room... losing my monitors, taking the time to setup my keyboard and mouse, etc. That is far from ideal for me.
altero 13y ago
Perhaps rent a family house on sub-orbs instead of an office.
throwaway1460 13y ago
The earliest commercial electric distribution systems in the US used direct current. This was the only technically viable option at the time, but voltage drop made it necessary for power plants to be close to the user -- even in expensive locations -- which in turn required the continuous transportation of fuel to these power plants. In the 1880s, various inventions made it possible to use high-voltage AC to transmit electric power without significant voltage drop. It became cheaper to put the power plants near the fuel and move the electric power. Furthermore, it became possible to generate electricity from power sources, like great waterfalls, that could not be moved at all. The moral of the story? If anyone ever invents a way to move code from programmers to employers more cheaply than moving the programmers themselves, Silicon Valley is doomed.
memracom 13y ago
Office space would be a lot cheaper if you would just move out of the big tech hubs! Even Silicon Valley has its distant suburbs where rent is cheaper, and commute times are lower.

by nlh 13y ago

RHSeeger 13y ago

> The ideal office that we'd all love to work in - that perfect 4-6 person bullpen with private offices surrounding Not all of us. My (and I assume many others) ideal office is a room with a door, with my computer hooked up to 2-3 monitors and a bunch of other things I find useful to my work. Moving out of the open space to a side room... losing my monitors, taking the time to setup my keyboard and mouse, etc. That is far from ideal for me.

altero 13y ago

Perhaps rent a family house on sub-orbs instead of an office.

throwaway1460 13y ago

The earliest commercial electric distribution systems in the US used direct current. This was the only technically viable option at the time, but voltage drop made it necessary for power plants to be close to the user -- even in expensive locations -- which in turn required the continuous transportation of fuel to these power plants. In the 1880s, various inventions made it possible to use high-voltage AC to transmit electric power without significant voltage drop. It became cheaper to put the power plants near the fuel and move the electric power. Furthermore, it became possible to generate electricity from power sources, like great waterfalls, that could not be moved at all. The moral of the story? If anyone ever invents a way to move code from programmers to employers more cheaply than moving the programmers themselves, Silicon Valley is doomed.

memracom 13y ago

Office space would be a lot cheaper if you would just move out of the big tech hubs! Even Silicon Valley has its distant suburbs where rent is cheaper, and commute times are lower.