Facebook Designing New Campus • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#31

Post by prodigal_erik » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 6:12 AM UTC

geoffschmidt wrote: post #28

dsr_ wrote: post #5

I wouldn't say that this is the worst possibly use of Facebook's money, but I would rank it up there. Building a new HQ is largely an exercise in vanity and boasting. There is almost always an existing building that would serve just fine, otherwise. "The largest open floor plan in the world"? Oy. I hope they hire some good acoustics folks before they finish the planning stages.

I think it's money well spent. Facebook is one of the principle belligerent powers in the War for Talent. They're going to lose some ground in that war after the IPO. A stunning campus could help minimize that loss.

This all but guarantees they'll never be able to offer an office where I can get serious stretches of undisturbed time. For an major employer of developers (who are known for wanting to get into the zone) that's stunning, but not in a good way.

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#32

Post by nickm12 » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 6:22 AM UTC

I worked for a number of years in the MIT Stata Center, an office building designed by Gehry. It was a trainwreck on so many levels. This article (http://www.fastcompany.com/641146/lost-funhouse ) details the some of the construction issues, but even if the building had been watertight, on budget, and on time, the design itself made it difficult to work in.

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#33

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 6:30 AM UTC

troymc wrote: post #26

underwater wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook offices have always been open plan. I personally like it. It can occasionally been frustrating, but overall the benefits outweigh the negatives for the way we work. I don't believe that it has ever been about minimizing costs. Many people work from home or camp out in a small meeting room if they want privacy. There are also over ear head phones available for free all around the campus.

Wikipedia has an article that links to a lot of the research on open plan offices (and other configurations): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_plan

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#34

Post by anamax » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 6:32 AM UTC

staunch wrote: post #9

Every time I'm reminded of just how many programmers Facebook has it bothers me that he missed such a cool opportunity. He gets programming better than probably any BigCo tech CEO and yet he made the same damn mistake of hiring thousands upon thousands of programmers instead of just getting the 10X Programmers and having 1/10th as many while paying them 2x as much. Imagine if the budget for this 5000 person building…

> He gets programming better than probably any BigCo tech CEO and yet he made the same damn mistake of hiring thousands upon thousands of programmers instead of just getting the 10X Programmers and having 1/10th as many while paying them 2x as much.

What makes you think that Facebook doesn't hire every 10x programmer it can? What makes you think that Google doesn't?

After they hire every 10x programmer they can, what do you think they should do? They've still got money to spend and stuff to do. Are you seriously suggesting that they don't spend that money to do those things?

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#35

Post by whathappenedto » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 6:32 AM UTC

prodigal_erik wrote: post #31

geoffschmidt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's money well spent. Facebook is one of the principle belligerent powers in the War for Talent. They're going to lose some ground in that war after the IPO. A stunning campus could help minimize that loss.

This all but guarantees they'll never be able to offer an office where I can get serious stretches of undisturbed time. For an major employer of developers (who are known for wanting to get into the zone) that's stunning, but not in a good way.

You could always work from your own home. Fast internet, free food, get in the zone for as long as you want.

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#36

Post by vlad » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 6:39 AM UTC

kabdib wrote: post #10

dsr_ wrote: post #5

I wouldn't say that this is the worst possibly use of Facebook's money, but I would rank it up there. Building a new HQ is largely an exercise in vanity and boasting. There is almost always an existing building that would serve just fine, otherwise. "The largest open floor plan in the world"? Oy. I hope they hire some good acoustics folks before they finish the planning stages.

It's amusing to correlate "new campus" with "stock drop" in the history of Silly Valley. Atari, Apple, Sun, Cisco . . . these companies all had significant hard times about the time they started large new sets of buildings.

Sounds like the Skyscraper Index, an interesting observation that many of the world's tallest structures were built right before the economy headed into recession. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_Index

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#37

Post by lovskogen » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 6:43 AM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #13

Honestly? It looks like a vision of hell. If there's one thing Microsoft got right, it's that they read Peopleware and took it at least half seriously.

Could you elaborate on the design?

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#38

Post by FaceKicker » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 6:59 AM UTC

whathappenedto wrote: post #35

prodigal_erik wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all but guarantees they'll never be able to offer an office where I can get serious stretches of undisturbed time. For an major employer of developers (who are known for wanting to get into the zone) that's stunning, but not in a good way.

You could always work from your own home. Fast internet, free food, get in the zone for as long as you want.

> free food

Am I being dumb or are you saying Facebook pays for their employees' groceries if they choose to work from home instead of working at the office and eating at the free cafe(s) there? I'm impressed if so (even though it probably wouldn't really add up to that much money for a company that can afford to pay $1B for Instagram).

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#39

Post by zerostar07 » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 7:09 AM UTC

What's with the high voltage lines right next to the building? Or is it something else?

Re: Facebook Designing New Campus

#40

Post by carterschonwald » Sat, Aug 25, 2012, 7:21 AM UTC

spitfire wrote: post #29

carterschonwald wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres also Valve Software (read their lovely handbook! http://newcdn.flamehaus.com/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf ). They (to my knowledge) only hire folks who're at senior grade in terms of their skills. Also Valve software just generally sounds like an amazing work environment. aside/caveat: I'm aiming to create just such an organization (operationally structured a la Valve) in terms of caliber of folks in NYC with Wel…

Ahem. Rather than automagic bullshit, could you just do machine learning which handles multiple data-types. That would be a big change for the ML crowd to have to deal with real world, multiple typed, dirty data. Earthshattering, I know. (Yes, we've already spoken by email. Best of luck on your adventures)

I said the other folks are doing automagic BS, :-)

Yup, Thats one of the problems I'm solving "right" (or nearly so) in the basic alpha as it gets in shape.

Thanks! Were you the unicorn email dude?