I do some small amount of woodworking on the side of my main job, and as a result I have a large envelope CNC router in my garage. I occasionally post ads for craigslist looking for odd jobs. About a year ago, I was approached via craigslist by a contractor working on this campus to help make some plywood parts for concrete forms that they couldn't figure out how to mark and measure on site with a jigsaw. They were t…
A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
211–220 of 440 posts
Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah. A simple donation to the local municipality would have gotten this requirement waived. I once heard of a company getting past height restrictions by simply buying the town a few new firetrucks.
In what way is this "donation" not a bribe? Just because it goes to the government at large vs. an individual?
If you just "bribe" the organization, there's no conflict of interest. "We want to build this" "we dont want you to" "heres some money" "ok".
Its a bit like negotiating with the CEO vs. bribing a lone DBA about getting access to proprietary data.
Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disappointed no pictures of the pods
There is indeed a picture of a "pod". It is a claustrophobic closet with glass doors. I have been in elevators I'd rather work in.
I've built out office space for my 40 person engineering group before with individual one person offices. They had doors to shut and most had windows (but not all, all offices have interior space, and space being expensive need to be used), but all had some amount of glass to their hallways. And they all loved them. Apple's Pods are even better than what I was able to get.
You don't seem to understand how hard it is to get any company, even a tech company, to understand the value of one person offices for software development. Most of these decisions are made by operations, essentially the CFO. I was lucky enough to have a CFO who understood lowest cost options weren't always best, that productivity mattered far more.
But even when I convinced him, the building owner pushed back. They give you a certain budget for build-out, but they don't want you building out in a manner that can't be easily sublet if you leave. The building owner felt that larger offices and open space was far more flexible, new tenants would only have to buy cubes!
Apple's Pods seem to be at the forefront of maximizing individual productivity and work satisfaction. I'll bet you can't name any other large company that's made such a large commitment to personal work space.
Note that Louise Mozingo, the urban design professor at UC Berkeley has criticized Apple for the pods, because she thinks that the modern workspace should be an enormous shared space where people can "collaborate" by shouting at each other over their co-workers heads. That's the kind of design advice workspace planners are giving out today.
Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
> standard: 50 years According to this study[0] 50 years is the maximum lifespan of a commercial building, not the standard . Over 50% of demolished steel commercial buildings were under 25 years old. [0] PDF: http://cwc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/DurabilityService_L...
There's zero chance that building doesn't last 50 years, whether it's still being used by Apple 50 years from now or not.
Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disappointed no pictures of the pods
I think this is one of the pods. It looks... tight. https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/apple-galle...
The problem with the big glass wall is that peoples offices tend to be messy. They want lots of desk space to toss crap on. But you want lots of glass so it feels more open (while still giving people quiet work areas). If you can give them good enclosed storage options, then their offices should remain looking relatively neat.
Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#216Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is building 11,000 parking spaces not because it wants to but because Cupertino, the suburban city where the new headquarters is located, demands it. Cupertino has a requirement for every building. http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21720269-dont-let-peo... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14067658
From the linked article re Cupertino: > For a fast-food restaurant, the city demands one space for every three seats; for a bowling alley, seven spaces per lane plus one for every worker. I've read a bunch of articles about the negative externalities of minimum parking requirements, but haven't really seen one explore the why behind these rules. What does it matter to the city if a bowling alley doesn't have enough p…
Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#218I'd wish they were a bit more futuristic than having 9000 parking spaces. Why not offer buses from where their employees live or other means of transportation? It's easy to say that most people drive, but that's only because everyone always make that the most convenient mode of transportation. With some effort something else could be even more convenient.
No offense but I hear this a lot "Why not public transportation?" Well, why not a car if people wanted to have a car? With Tesla and new E.V.s hitting the market, the primary reason (pollution) is gone.
Driving is the single most dangerous thing most people will do at any time. It is a ridiculous, barbaric thing to do.
Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't work for a big company. Every morning I take my daughter to daycare before going to work. Although not far from where we live (2 km), I still need to drive in the opposite direction. This means an extra ~20 minutes per morning. That's just the trip. Add to it the lack of parking spaces and rapidly decreasing chance of finding one after a certain time point. Not to mention that I need wake up a 3 year old at a…
Why should the company spend millions a year on a perk you can take advantage of that I can't? And let's not assume you can take advantage of it, given there will be a waiting list. Why do people want a return to the "company town" model just to save a few minutes?
You can absolutely take advantage of it, by raising a child.
Re: A Look Inside Apple’s New Campus
#220Everyone should note that Louise Mozingo has criticized the Apple campus from not having large open floor plans where employees can stare at each other across narrow tables and "collaborate" by yelling to one another over their co-workers heads.
She simply doesn't get how software developers work. When I made the case for individual one person offices to the CFO at a 100 person software company, we calculated the extra cost of one person offices over cubicles or a shared layout would increase our cost per engineer about 1/2 of 1%. In relation to the productivity benefits, that's immensely trivial.
We did it, and it worked great. And when engineers wanted to "collaborate", they'd go to each others offices without bothering anyone else! Amazing.