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Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

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Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#21

Post by mseebach »

Yup. We're all liberal pluralists. Live and let live.

Except, of course, for employment choices. We all agree that traditional working environments with all their industrial era baggage sucks, but if I don't leave on the minute after a 40 hours work week, and I don't get paid overtime (so much for the industrial era baggage) it's incontrovertible evidence of rampant exploitation. Employees to claim to like their workplaces are brainwashed because the only reason you like your workplace is if you drank the koolaid - and of course hating your job is evidence of incompetent management. Remote work is the thing of the future, except companies that provide for easy remote working are under deep suspicion for tricking their employees to work during their free time.

HN is really, really schizophrenic on work. The middlebrow is strong with this one.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#22

Post by lhgaghl »

Centigonal wrote: post #6
rodgerd wrote: post #2

Startup or cult?

That's really the first thing that comes to mind, isn't it? I mean, I feel like it could go either way: eccentric jazz musician Sun Ra's Arkestra lived (and still mostly live) communally in a Philadelphia row house, and they haven't gone insane. On the other hand, the demands of a business are different from those of a musical group. It seems like, for young tech people, the pendulum is swinging in the direction of c…

They may not have gone insane, but Sun Ra has been on Saturn.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#24

Post by pjc50 »

mseebach wrote: post #21

Yup. We're all liberal pluralists. Live and let live. Except, of course, for employment choices. We all agree that traditional working environments with all their industrial era baggage sucks, but if I don't leave on the minute after a 40 hours work week, and I don't get paid overtime (so much for the industrial era baggage) it's incontrovertible evidence of rampant exploitation. Employees to claim to like their work…

Anything can be made to sound bad if you oversimplify. Any community can be made to sound incoherent if you collapse the opinions of very different people on top of one another.

It's pretty obvious that the article is describing an unusual arrangement that won't suit everyone - although it's not specific to tech, there are other jobs where you get stuffed into a remote, often mostly young male, community for months at a time. Oil, the military, certain religious and agricultural communities.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#25

Post by it_learnses »

pjc50 wrote: post #24
mseebach wrote: post #21

Yup. We're all liberal pluralists. Live and let live. Except, of course, for employment choices. We all agree that traditional working environments with all their industrial era baggage sucks, but if I don't leave on the minute after a 40 hours work week, and I don't get paid overtime (so much for the industrial era baggage) it's incontrovertible evidence of rampant exploitation. Employees to claim to like their work…

Anything can be made to sound bad if you oversimplify. Any community can be made to sound incoherent if you collapse the opinions of very different people on top of one another. It's pretty obvious that the article is describing an unusual arrangement that won't suit everyone - although it's not specific to tech, there are other jobs where you get stuffed into a remote, often mostly young male, community for months a…

I sense deep irony in this comment...

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#26

Post by renang »

I see myself doing this for a short period of time, say one or week.

That's actually a plan I am making with some friends/coders. We may rent a nice villa somewhere in Spain for two weeks. Get some buzz and some work done. Would be nice to have ideas flowing and in the end we may leave with a product.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#27

Post by calibraxis »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #14
huhtenberg wrote: post #9

This is seriously f#cked up. I can understand 3-4 people who are equals between themselves pulling this off, but with 24 people there's no way everyone likes the arrangement, so having everyone to be in it 24/7 is wrong.

I think it's safe to assume everyone there is pretty ok with it. It's not like anyone there doesn't have 3 recruiters/week asking them if they want a more traditional arrangement.

At virtually every company I've worked with, there's something fucked up. (Can't even afford to be unaware of it, as it affects the work.) Yes, I've been privileged enough to leave... for yet another fucked up company.

(So no point in speaking for everyone, like managers typically do. "At our company, we think...")

Like others, I'm very curious how it works with non-work relationships like families and friends.

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#29

Post by malux85 »

I would do this. I understand it's not appropriate for some people (families / children etc)

But there are people like me, who just aren't good at the "real life" stuff. Give me a place to sleep, eat and exercise (wow - they have a pool!) and I'd gladly spend the rest of the time hacking on a start-up ... especially if it was cool technology like Augmented Reality

Re: Meta’s entire 24-person team works and lives together in the same estate

#30

Post by rytis »

huhtenberg wrote: post #9

This is seriously f#cked up. I can understand 3-4 people who are equals between themselves pulling this off, but with 24 people there's no way everyone likes the arrangement, so having everyone to be in it 24/7 is wrong.

Also, what happens if I really like the product, and I am eager to work on it, but not 24x7? I suppose I'm not welcome then? This is just sick, IMO.
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