
How Hard Could it Be?: Adventures in Office Space - terpua
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080601/how-hard-could-it-be-adventures-in-office-space.html?partner=fogcreek
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ambition
Rent was 15% of revenue, now it's 2%. Conclusion: Fog creek revenues have
increased around 7.5x since they moved into their current space. Impressive.

~~~
spolsky
rents go up from year to year. And we expanded in the existing space. Revenues
increased about 17x in five years.

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steveplace
And remember... spolsky's earned it. Fog Creek has been around for a while, so
they can afford the amenmnities.

Fiscal conservatism should be all the rage if you ever startup something. So
you can grow, and _then_ get the 150 gal saltwater aquarium.

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ajross
It's my experience that there's a hugely bimodal distribution in people's
feelings on this issue. Some folks like Spolsky just eat it up. Thinking about
office space and design turns them on, and it feeds back into being happier
with everything (or conversely, working in a gray-carpetted drywall office
drives them nuts). That's fine. To each his own.

But for a lot of the rest of us, it's just not a big deal. The mechanics of
the work environment (good location, quiet, offices with doors, etc...)
certainly matter. But the look? Meh. To us, no matter what the physical space
is, it's the coworkers who really define the work environment. Just bear that
in mind before you decide that you _have_ to write that huge check to the
interior designer.

At best, pretty space is going to help retain people on the margin: maybe it's
a tiebreaker between you and google, etc... But it's never much more than a
tiebreaker.

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staunch
I have a lot of respect and admiration for people willing to do big things and
take flak for intangible benefits. Probably my favorite character trait in
other people.

I'd want to work there merely because he's inclined to do things like this,
even if I didn't care about the office.

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terpua
<http://www.dornbracht.com/en/>

Never heard of them until now...it's art you actually use!

------
redorb
Anyone else get pissed off at the aarp ad covering the 1st letter of every
sentence, and not being able to be closed or moved?

\- or am I the last to not use ADblocker (using FF )

~~~
allenbrunson
yeah, that bugged me too. (i'm a safari user)

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josefresco
Kind of sad that you have to attract programmers with glass walls, marble
floors and shiny objects. Give me a connection to the 'net, nothing else, and
I'm there.

~~~
bouncingsoul
No one disputes that humans can live and work in slummy conditions, but that
doesn't mean we should. We could also raise families in one-room homes with
seven ft. ceilings. That would suck though.

A desire to shape our environment to be aesthetically pleasing is not a human
defect that needs to be transcended: it's a natural desire that fulfilled
improves our lives. (Example: it's been shown that higher ceilings increase
creative problem solving:
<http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/519146>)

You speak as if you've taken the better side in the case of form vs. function.
But just like we're wary of people obsessed with form over function I think we
should be wary of praising function and degrading the importance form.

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dcurtis
I don't get it. Why does Joel Spolsky spend so much time on the look and
beauty of his office, but allow his websites and products to be so horribly
ugly?

It appears he treats his programmers like royalty, but where are the UI
designers? This is painfully evident in the look of FogBugz and other software
from Fog Creek.

~~~
iamelgringo
He's making a killing with his "ugly" products and had 17x revenue growth in 5
years. I'm sure if he could charge an extra $100 per license, he'd make the
software prettier. As it is, he primarily sells bug tracking software to
Windows programmers. It's not exactly a sexy, design driven business.

~~~
dcurtis
It doesn't matter that the target audience works on Windows. That's no excuse
to make hideous looking software.

The argument he uses for creating a great environment for his programmers
works the same way regarding his software-- creating a really nice place for
his customers to work will hopefully make them happier.

