21–30 of 65 posts
Really? I bet it isn't. I bet his desk isn't used for sustained state of flow concentration on intricate abstract mechanisms.
What's that saying about the law being equal by equally forbidding the the poor and the rich from sleeping under bridges and stealing apples?
The open plan office helps CEO and workers be approachable, interruptable, and able to hold many impromptu meetings.
Right...
How do people get anything done on single screen setups like this?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only quickly glanced at it and thought it was a sweatshop in Bangladesh; I then had to look again because that didn't seem to match the headline of the article or what I'd remembered clicking on from HN. I think it's possibly the ceiling (what is that?) or the things suspended from it that creates this impression (and it's probably an unflattering photograph), but honestly it looks like a perfect nightmare to me.
That said, I think those are all Herman Miller chairs, so I guess that's something.
"1. North Korea-like atmosphere of self-censorship: ... even simple conversations with other coworkers can be difficult, because all conversations are broadcasted into the room and you've got to be careful not to step on the toes of 10-20 other people at all times. Good luck with that."
It's interesting watching the juxtaposed trends of increased remote work and... this, in the tech sector. Clearly there is a trend away from "traditional" offices, but it appears to be moving in two fundamentally opposite directions at the same time. Of course, both share one significant feature: cost savings compared to a more traditional office environment. I guess another similarity could be increased equality, al…
That's the only reason I can excuse open plan in sv tech at all; otherwise it seems to be a clear failure vs. well-executed offices. It's better than the hierarchical allocation of offices/corner offices/etc. to managers, but that isn't the optimal way to deploy offices.
We can do better, even at 0-50 person startups, than either.
It's interesting watching the juxtaposed trends of increased remote work and... this, in the tech sector. Clearly there is a trend away from "traditional" offices, but it appears to be moving in two fundamentally opposite directions at the same time. Of course, both share one significant feature: cost savings compared to a more traditional office environment. I guess another similarity could be increased equality, al…
For startups, it's not just about the cost, it's about flexibility. It's easier to have a decent open-plan low density and 3x the people in it overall, or particularly, to 10x a certain department while 1.1xing the other departments temporarily, into a crowded shitty open plan, than it is to have a bunch of 1-2 person sized offices and somehow put 30 into a single office while keeping the others at 1-2. That's the on…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That said, I think those are all Herman Miller chairs, so I guess that's something.
I'm sitting on one right now (not a FB one), while knowing full well how expensive they are - what I can never understand is /why/ they are so expensive - I can't say its noticeably more comfortable than any other office chair I've used.
There's probably a $100-200 chair of some design which works better for each individual than the $1000 aeron; it's just a different $100-200 chair for each person. And it probably will not last 7 years in daily hard use.
Zuck may not technically have an office, but if it's anything like the other places I've worked where "the CEO sits right out in the open with everyone else!", then he probably has a conference room reserved for his use 24/7. And this actually makes sense. A lot of what he would talk about would be insider information. You don't want to hear that as an employee.