I live a block away from the Craigslist office (which is, yes, in a normal-looking house/storefront with a charmingly ugly sign above the door). I often walk past it during business hours, but the gate is always closed and locked.
I bumped into CEO Jim Buckmaster (a friend of mine) near the office, and I asked him about the locked gate. "We all work upstairs now," Jim said. "We had to keep the first floor locked up because people kept dropping in to say how much they love us."
I was at a talk by Jim Buckmaster (CEO) at Edinburgh University earlier this year, he mentioned this. He attributed the lack of staff turnover to the generally relaxed work environment rather than one of these specific reasons. Seems like quite a cool place to work for a programmer, and given only 23 people work there it's not surprising few people leave.
Anyway, the video is available here if you are interested, have a look around 8 minutes: mms://granton.ucs.ed.ac.uk/tech-entrepreneur/IE2-06-07/S07JimBuckmaster.wmv
(maybe it was the jet lag but he's definitely the most chilled out CEO I have seen!)
I bumped into CEO Jim Buckmaster (a friend of mine) near the office, and I asked him about the locked gate. "We all work upstairs now," Jim said. "We had to keep the first floor locked up because people kept dropping in to say how much they love us."