31–40 of 89 posts
Better recruiting tool: Make an office that female developers want to work in, the male developers will follow.
But I don't think you'd want female developers. Female sales staff, female secretaries, etc.
Nice office, but without nice pussy, what's the point?
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 nig…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but then of course, spending a shit ton of money just to make yourself feel better is one of the luxuries of not being beholden to outside investors. Between ludicrous offices and the 37s "4 days a week" plan, I'd probably go with 37s.
Heh, you just won't let go of that "beholden to outside investor" thing, will you? Are you suggesting that investors keep startups from getting ludicrous office space? From my experience with well-funded dotcom startups, they all tend to spend staggering amounts on sexy office space. We're lightly funded, so we sure as hell didn't. In any case, Joel isn't spending a shit ton-- he's spending ~4-6% of revenue, as he sa…
(Although I'm unlikely to "let go" of the outside investor thing; I help run a bootstrapped company, and had a bad VC experience).
Why do the admins have to sit in a closet?
Why do the UI designers have to... wait a minute, there aren't any! If he spent half the amount of money he spent on this amazing office for a kick ass UI team, he would increase sales by an enormous amount for Fogbugz. I know so many people who would switch if it wasn't so damn ugly and difficult to use. I don't think people use Lighthouse because it has better features. Joel's priorities seem very odd to me.
http://picasaweb.google.com/spolsky/FogCreekSNewOffice#52853...
Check out all of the famous series 7 chairs:
http://picasaweb.google.com/spolsky/FogCreekSNewOffice#52853...
It's got that not-quite-a-prison institutional look to it. That's great if you're running a high school in the poorest district in Mississippi, but given his budget [1] you'd think it would look nice.
I've got a private office, and the landlord charged my company nothing to throw up walls and doors in the empty space we rented. Maybe it's impossible to avoid Veblen goods in NYC, though.
[1] http://www.gibraltarfurniture.com/malik-mc-c-2201.html That's right. It's 300 dollars.
Better recruiting tool: Make an office that female developers want to work in, the male developers will follow.
Um...yeah. I think the biggest draw of any office is the pussy. That's what I care about. But I don't think you'd want female developers. Female sales staff, female secretaries, etc. Nice office, but without nice pussy, what's the point?
Why do the admins have to sit in a closet?
Why do the UI designers have to... wait a minute, there aren't any! If he spent half the amount of money he spent on this amazing office for a kick ass UI team, he would increase sales by an enormous amount for Fogbugz. I know so many people who would switch if it wasn't so damn ugly and difficult to use. I don't think people use Lighthouse because it has better features. Joel's priorities seem very odd to me.
seriously nice diggs, cant imagine how much that place costs but they've got the cash and have a great outlook on getting ROI via recruiting and client WOW, certainly offers a differnt perspective to just getting bought. Why not built a super cool company that you love to work at instead?
I doubt it has a good ROI via recruiting, etc. Joel mentioned he spent more than a million on improving the interior design. No recruiting is going to make up for that, any time soon#. And in a few years Fog Creek will move to a different location again - at which point they'll have to build a new high end office. So really, this seems to be a case of spending money to improve quality of life. The other benefits, suc…
The key is to spend capital to get the best programmers to create profit. This idea isn't something Joel made up it's an idea by Phil Greenspun, "Building and keeping a good software engineering team" ~ http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient-history/managing-softwar...
So what's your idea?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I doubt it has a good ROI via recruiting, etc. Joel mentioned he spent more than a million on improving the interior design. No recruiting is going to make up for that, any time soon#. And in a few years Fog Creek will move to a different location again - at which point they'll have to build a new high end office. So really, this seems to be a case of spending money to improve quality of life. The other benefits, suc…
the costs are roughly $4000 per employee per year. That's maybe 15% of their salary, probably less. You think that top software engineering graduates in New York City make $26k per year? Recalibrate! Recalibrate! I think the number you're looking for is "less than 4%". Remember that the office-construction expenses can be massaged by accountants to reduce taxes on them, and that an employee's (e.g.) $80k salary costs…
Two points and a necessary footnote:
1) 30% is on the high end. 20%-25% is a normal fee (and in this environment, you can probably bargain your recruiter down to 20%).
2) That cost is what you pay for a recruiter, instead of paying your HR people to do the initial screening. Your recruiter might call up someone knowing that there are ten client companies that would interview someone who graduated in the top 10% of her class at one of the top 10% of schools -- but that only two or three of those interviewers would be a good cultural fit. It's worth it for your recruiter to chase the weird ones (if they're not right for XYZ Co., ABC Ltd. would still love to have them!); the equation is different for in-house HR.
Footnote: I'm a recruiter, who -- sadly -- does not get to work with awesome companies like Fog Creek. Working on it, though.