
The Curse of a New Building - coglethorpe
http://steveblank.com/2009/05/15/supermac-war-story-11-the-curse-of-a-new-building/
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fizx
I'd also like to say that this also happens with churches. Every church I've
enjoyed didn't own their own building. Rather, they just rented space from the
local high school, etc. These groups were extremely focused on building tight-
knit communities, and were pretty free to adapt to changing circumstances.
Conversely, I can think of a few churches with buildings, where the primary
focus of the staff was maintaining enough donations to pay the mortgage.

This sort of phenomena applies to other communities in addition to technology
businesses.

~~~
dag
Generally agreed, though I can think of one example to the contrary.

The churches that rent are usually newer and growing. The much loved idea that
a startup is a better place than a well established organization works for
churches too. I also heard that (IIRC) a church just about doubles in size
when it gets a building. I don't know what analogue that has in the business
world.

(Protip: Rent from a Catholic highschool, even if it's a Protestant church.
Lower prices, smarter people.)

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skmurphy
This is one of Parkinson’s Laws: "perfection of planned layout is only
achieved by institutions on the point of collapse."

In the chapter "Plans and Plants" of "Parkinson's Law" (see
[http://www.amazon.com/Parkinsons-Law-Cyril-Northcote-
Parkins...](http://www.amazon.com/Parkinsons-Law-Cyril-Northcote-
Parkinson/dp/1568490151) ) he makes the point that

"During a period of exciting discovery or progress there is no time to plan
the perfect headquarters. The time for that comes later, when all the
important work has been done. Perfection, we know, is finality; and finality
is death."

Parkinson reviews a number of headquarters buildings: League of Nations,
Pentagon, St. Peter’s Basilica, Versailles,.... He concludes that their
completion marked the sunset of the organizations that they were intended to
house.

~~~
spolsky
Absolute rubbish. I can give you just as many anecdotes to the contrary, viz.:
Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, all of whom had reasonably perfect offices two
decades ago.

~~~
jibiki
Parkinson published his book in 1958 :)

One imagines that there were counterexamples even in his day, though. Can
anyone think of some companies that were rising stars in 1958? Did they have
nice offices?

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spolsky
Jeez, I hate this attitude... that the only way a company can succeed is if
you suffer. You spend all friggin' day at the office. It doesn't have to be a
coalmine for the company to succeed. On the contrary. When a startup gets to
the point that it needs to recruit the top talent, it better have nice working
conditions. Look at Amazon today... crappy offices, pride in using doors as
desks, and huge turnover among the development staff. Where are the Amazon
engineers going? Google and Microsoft.

~~~
potatolicious
Do you have more insight into why Amazon's turnover is so high? I'm starting
there fairly soon, and things look pretty peachy on the outside, but I am
aware that for some reason or another people up and leave after about 2 years.

I honestly didn't mind the office - cramped sure, no fancy furniture sure, but
I'm there to work, not marvel at the finishing and grain on my desk...

I do agree though, IMHO from the article the biggest loss was putting people
into their own offices - but that's a failure in planning and understanding
the company's development dynamics, not necessarily in the very act of moving.

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noonespecial
So is it a case of "damned if you do, damned if you don't"? How do startups
expand when they really have outgrown that little hole in the wall without
losing the startup culture that allowed the initial success?

Is the curse of the new building unavoidable?

~~~
jpwagner
The title is misleading.

The article is really about excess spending.

Yes, if you spend excessively you're damned. No, you're not damned if you
don't spend excessively.

~~~
stanleydrew
It's about more than excessive spending:

"The new building telegraphed to our employees, “We’ve arrived. We’re no
longer a small struggling startup. You can stop working like a startup and
start working like a big company." We started to believe that the new building
was a reflection of the company’s (and our own) success. We took our eye off
the business. We thought that since we in such a fine building, we were
geniuses, and the business would take care of itself."

Even if you had a modest new building and didn't give every engineer his or
her own office you still might observe this.

But I think probably by making a serious effort to preserve the culture and
values of the company that existed pre-new-building you could avoid the
"damned if you do" piece.

~~~
jpwagner
This is absurd:

"Now every engineer can have their own office."

NOT INEVITABLE--EXCESSIVE SPENDING

"The new building needs to reflect that we’re a successful and established
company. Lets “do it right” and have a lobby and reception area that projects
a professional image."

NOT INEVITABLE AND IMPLIES EXCESSIVE SPENDING

"Lets get comfortable chairs and great new desks for everyone. None of this
used stuff."

NOT INEVITABLE, BLATANTLY EXCESSIVE SPENDING

"Now we can pick out carpets that look good and feel good and we can have
clean walls with great artwork and murals. "

ETC

"Lets make sure that we have plenty of conference rooms. We need our own
cafeteria so employees don’t have to leave the building."

ETC

~~~
zxcvb
Why shouldn't the engineers have new Aeron chairs? Software Engineers spend
most of their careers sat down, so you should buy them the best damn chair you
can afford, something that supports their bodies and is very comfortable.

Look at fogcreek software, they managed to move to AWESOME offices and they
are still a lean company hiring great engineers who make great products.

~~~
derefr
They can have comfortable chairs. There is no reason, though, that they have
to be _new_ comfortable chairs.

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gregk
This happened to me when our company moved at the height of the 1st dot com
boom and ended up burdened with space that caused us to close (rumor said
about $1mill / 100 people). It certainly was months of disruption. In my
neighborhood I can think of Sun, Netscape, Bay Networks and SGI that had this
happen. The big move is at least an indicator to look twice.

~~~
ghshephard
As one who started at Netscape in 1996 and saw it through to the sale to AOL
($4B Sale, Final Day of Trading $10B) - I'll agree that the constant
shuffling, moving, and campus growth was a pretty constant distraction - but
what else could they do? Ton of product lines, lots of markets in the land
grab, and you needed to put the people _somewhere_

I think Netscape managed their office shifts pretty well from 1996 onwards. I
don't think it could have been done much better.

And, one could do worse than selling their five year old company (April 4,
1994 - sometime around April, 1999) for $10 Billion. :-)

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maclifer
What an excellent set of observations! I have been around and witnessed
organizations going through the same mindset and pretty much watched the same
tragic downfalls happen.

I personally witnessed this professionally in ministry settings as well as
tech companies. Very interesting.

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nazgulnarsil
you stay number 1 by acting like you're number 2.

