What photos of Facebook’s new headquarters say about work | Hacker News Reader

What photos of Facebook’s new headquarters say about work

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54 pointse15ctr0n62 comments

Yikes. The push to eliminate any sense of personal space is, I think, reflective of the new dynamic between employers and employees - don't set down any roots, you may not be here long enough to matter. Don't expect me to commit to the company, I may not be here long enough to care. Ideologically and aesthetically, my reaction to this space was that it feels like a reduction of the workforce to interchangeable factory laborers.

The aesthetic feels messy, undirected, and haphazard. I'm sure that someone thinks it means "creative", but I think I'd probably just feel like I'm in a warehouse somewhere.

Also indicative of Facebook as a product.

Why don't we just share all of our stuff with everyone irrespective of if it negatively affects us? SHARE SHARE SHARE!!

That's a personal opinion and I fully respect it. But I would like to share mine too, which is pretty opposite to yours. I worked for 3 companies as a dev in about 6 years of experience, I always left because I wanted to move to something "more", not because I didn't care or didn't feel included. In all 3 I had a seemingly open space and I really like it if I have space to breath.

I don't think it's about not caring or mattering, actually, the open space environment originated to fight that feeling of being nobody, alone in your cubicle. What open space is trying to achieve is showing that everyone is, at least theoretically, on the same level.

Ultimately, I like it, but I don't think it's perfect and it will probably change. The thing to remember is that this whole big companies are a relatively new thing and nobody has the perfect formula yet, people/companies are experimenting and doing an effort to improve working conditions. I think that matters and I look forward to the future. We are iterating and as long as we don't start to regress I can do nothing but be happy.

Oh, it's absolutely a personal opinion. Everyone will react differently, and I truly hope that the folks that work there feel that it benefits and fuels them.

I totally get the idea behind open workspaces, and while there are positives to them - they definitely do encourage collaboration and more frequent interaction - I'm massively less productive in them. My issue isn't so much the lack of walls, but the complete abolition of any sense of ownership of a space. Not having a space that feels like my space makes it more difficult for me to get "into the zone", just because I'm less comfortable. Drive-by conversations can utterly murder a good half-hour debugging session. The temptation to get distracted by all the things going on around me noticeably cuts into my motivation and ability to buckle down and tear into the really hard problems.

I realize that this is just my personal reaction to spaces like this, and I'm certainly not authoritative on it, but I have absolutely observed that I'm far happier and more productive in a space that I can both feel a sense of ownership of and use strategically to limit interruptions and distractions.

It's interesting watching the juxtaposed trends of increased remote work and... this, in the tech sector. Clearly there is a trend away from "traditional" offices, but it appears to be moving in two fundamentally opposite directions at the same time.

Of course, both share one significant feature: cost savings compared to a more traditional office environment. I guess another similarity could be increased equality, although again, achieved in opposite manners: in one case, everyone gets to choose their own work environment, and in the other, everyone has an identical work environment. (Right down to a lack of personal effects in this case.) Still, the proponents of both approaches appear to believe they offer many other advantages. I wonder whether we'll see one or the other ultimately dominate.

Personally speaking, as the owner of a small, all-remote company, I vastly prefer the remote approach for my own quality of life. (Although I've certainly known people who prefer to go to an office every day.) As far as work output though, both remote work and open offices have advantages and disadvantages. Personally I can't stand the distractions being crammed in a room with a bunch of other developers, but at least being in the same building undoubtedly makes collaboration easier (not that it's impossible remotely). The company culture can definitely do a lot to make that sort of environment more pleasant too. (Things like avoiding noise pollution, and knowing when not to interrupt.) For me, even if I knew I could make more money by relocating everyone to an office, it wouldn't be worth it, but obviously that math would change a bit at Facebook scale.

The parent I wanted to reply to got deleted, but it feels quite suitable here, so here are my thoughts on difficulties of working in an open office:

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[Not an FB employee, but] Most of my workspaces have been semi-open: offices/rooms with ~10 workplaces scattered around, maybe a glass wall or a shelf here and there. As for HN, FB, etc: it highly depends on the culture, but if the office is open not for control - you just open and browse. One might as well browse stackexchange (e.g. arqade) for leisure or code personal project. The terribleness of NSFW link would be the shame/embarrassment you inflict on yourself and maybe an occasional finger pointing if anyone happens to witness.

The noise level is definitely higher than in a private office, but then again - culture. Either your colleagues are understanding to keep the noise level down or not. I can/could easily listen to music at comfortable levels even with open headphones.

A much bigger issue is that people tend to have coffee/smoke breaks in groups and it requires some self control not to take a break with each and every group. I'm not sure whether that's an issue, but since people tend to work different hours (e.g. 7-16, 9-18) it also puts some unconscious pressure to work 9-16 or 7-18.

Quite a lot of the "issues" (differences from an office) are related to the person/culture and not the workplace itself.

Just 10 years ago, we would scoff at the high density office environment of the Japanese Salaryman. The same salaryman who would die of overwork and jump into running trains. What happened? I'm genuinely perplexed.

http://www.accountant-tokyo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/J...

For startups, it's not just about the cost, it's about flexibility. It's easier to have a decent open-plan low density and 3x the people in it overall, or particularly, to 10x a certain department while 1.1xing the other departments temporarily, into a crowded shitty open plan, than it is to have a bunch of 1-2 person sized offices and somehow put 30 into a single office while keeping the others at 1-2.

That's the only reason I can excuse open plan in sv tech at all; otherwise it seems to be a clear failure vs. well-executed offices. It's better than the hierarchical allocation of offices/corner offices/etc. to managers, but that isn't the optimal way to deploy offices.

We can do better, even at 0-50 person startups, than either.

That's a great point. It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics. Many open plans reserve the prime areas for shared spaces, and there's obviously no reason an office space couldn't (or shouldn't) do that too. In fact, that jogs a faint memory of another post on HN some months back of an office like that; all the actual offices were on the interior, and the window spaces were all hallways, meeting rooms, and break areas. Can anyone remember what that was?

>It's possible for everyone to have offices without having the silly office pecking order politics.

IIRC this is Microsoft right?

I interviewed once up at the Borg, and as far as I remember almost everyone had tiny private offices. They were little more than closets. I'm sure some people had bigger/better offices than others, but there was a decent baseline.

I've worked in both private offices and big open floorplans like this. Prefer the former. However my favorite work environment was a smaller company where we all had two-person shared offices (most with no windows), and large coworking spaces where one could camp in the sunlight and be more social.

The two-person offices kept people from feeling totally isolated and encouraged some level of watercooler conversation, plus gave everyone a sense of privacy and control over their immediate environment. I thought it was the best of both worlds.

Would that really be the best way to set up offices? I would think that it would be better to set up offices around the perimeter, with as much natural light flowing into them as possible, meanwhile use the center no-window spaces for hallways, conference rooms, communal spaces.

Most buildings will have considerably more interior than window space, so it will be difficult to give all offices a view. In my opinion it's therefore better to have everyone share the nice spaces than to give preferential treatment to some employees. Plus, the point of an office is to have somewhere to concentrate. There's no reason you can't get up and go somewhere nicer for collaboration, creative thinking, relaxation, etc.

Edit, in fact, I just looked up from the desk in my home office and realized my blinds are closed. For a few hours in the afternoon I have to keep them closed to prevent the sun from blinding me, and they often end up staying that way. When I'm working I don't really notice. I'll generally think to open them when I'm in here relaxing on a nice, sunny day.

Visited an IBM office in San Francisco, near market street iirc, back in 2006 on a study trip, cubicles everywhere and a promise of a bigger cubicle, a cubicle with view of a window or maybe even a corner office if you had X years at the company. It all seemed pretty ridiculous to everyone in my class.

But this seems equally ridiculous, worked 4 places before starting my own company, and open office spaces were a thing in all of them. They ranged from absolutely horrible to fantastic. Good noise canceling headphones can cancel out most sounds, but there's no "cure" for visual disturbances, which for me (and a good part of my former colleagues), are almost as bad for my concentration as sounds. So in the worst open office spaces, there was always a "race" to get the best spots, whenever anyone moved places. By good spots I mean spots away from the main walking paths and a place where no one walks behind you and there's no visual stimuli other than maybe a window to gaze out of when wrestling with some weird bug in your mind.

Of course you can go in a meeting room when you want absolute isolation, but working on code it is awesome having two big monitors as well as peace and quiet, both audio and visual (or maybe I just have the attention span of a goldfish).

The best designed open office space I've worked in was the Spotify office in Stockholm, Sweden, squad areas closed on three sides, open on the fourth and with a little sofa corner and mini meeting room in each: http://tech.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2014-05-07-11.19.2...

The FB office makes me feel anxious just looking at it (the noise and the distractions) whereas that Spotify office looks calming and a place where I could concentrate and get some real work done (just look at the white wall with the patterned lines!).

Zuck may not technically have an office, but if it's anything like the other places I've worked where "the CEO sits right out in the open with everyone else!", then he probably has a conference room reserved for his use 24/7.

And this actually makes sense. A lot of what he would talk about would be insider information. You don't want to hear that as an employee.

Yes, Zuck has his own office that he spends most of his time in. What's neat is that his office is in the middle of Building 20 and has glass walls, so anyone can see what he's up to and who he's meeting.

And I'll bet you can't sit in Zuck's desk or area. How many FB employees are allowed to listen in on his conversations?

If it's non-confidential it doesn't matter, if it's confidential it wont be discussed in an open setting.

Why would FB employees want to listen in on Zuck's conversations? They all have better things to do with their time.

Why wouldn't I want to hear that?

If for some reason you weren't privy to insider information before (and could unload your shares at any time), now you'd be subject to rule 10b5-1.

Nice mid-50s factory floor ambience there. I'm half-expecting a whistle to blow and a new shift to come and sit down at the production line.

My reaction on seeing that first pic is that it looks kind of horrible !

I only quickly glanced at it and thought it was a sweatshop in Bangladesh; I then had to look again because that didn't seem to match the headline of the article or what I'd remembered clicking on from HN. I think it's possibly the ceiling (what is that?) or the things suspended from it that creates this impression (and it's probably an unflattering photograph), but honestly it looks like a perfect nightmare to me.

That said, I think those are all Herman Miller chairs, so I guess that's something.

I'm sitting on one right now (not a FB one), while knowing full well how expensive they are - what I can never understand is /why/ they are so expensive - I can't say its noticeably more comfortable than any other office chair I've used.

They're adjustable (so aerons can be at least ok for ~everyone), and durable, and pieces can be replaced. It's like commercial kitchens vs. home chef -- more expensive, but flexible, and meeting a lot of standards/requirements which make sense in commercial settings but not in one-off settings.

There's probably a $100-200 chair of some design which works better for each individual than the $1000 aeron; it's just a different $100-200 chair for each person. And it probably will not last 7 years in daily hard use.

They're quite comfortable if you get the right size and adjust it as you like.

Also build quality is a big part of it. I'm sitting on one I bought 10 years ago and it's still showing no signs of giving up. Meanwhile during that time a friend of mine has thrown out 3 ~$200 chairs already.

Same here. I recently had the epiphany that there was definitely an deeply aestethic side in software development which you would use to determine intuitively what a good design is, and since aesthetic is something you learn from your context, the environment you're evolving in has a direct influence on your ability to make good design ( something that designers in every field have known for a long time, of course).

Now imagine the kind of chaotic influence this messy office has on facebook code designers... My guess is that the best technologies aren't developped there.

The top half of the room looks like a warehouse I would ride my BMX bike in and then the floor is straight out of a doctor's office waiting room.

I admit that it is probably an age bias but this has always seemed nutty to me. Bill Gates has stated that one of the best things that he ever did for Microsoft's productivity was to give all his programmers offices.

Sure you can use headphones but I am most productive in absolute quiet. I can just imagine having headphones on with a low level of annoying white noise and I am deep into a difficult problem and then someone taps me on the shoulder.

I'd leap up pulling the laptop with me until my headphones jerked off. Somebody would ask me do you know where they put the coffee? I'd answer that I don't drink it and then spend another hour getting back to where I was before only to have someone else tap me on the shoulder, arrrgghhh.

I am willing to bet that the best programmers Facebook has got are hunched in the stairwell or a janitors closet getting work done.

> Before, people would close their door and you’d feel this real barrier to talking to them

Completely correct. I fail to understand how this is a bad thing, though. It sounds a like a good reason for doors to exist. It is well known that even short interruptions break flow and thus decrease productivity.

This barrier is even less of an imposition now that we have intra-office IM as the norm. If someone is in their office with the door closed, drop them an IM that they can read and act on when they're finished with what they're doing.

Maybe it matters less for non-programmers, but even a brief unexpected distraction can undo multiple minutes of mental effort for me. When I need to focus, the headphones go on, the door gets closed, and I intentionally erect barriers to interaction because it's important that I not be distracted. That closed door is a feature, not a bug.

Rich Geldreich http://richg42.blogspot.com/2015/01/open-office-spaces-and-c...

"1. North Korea-like atmosphere of self-censorship: ... even simple conversations with other coworkers can be difficult, because all conversations are broadcasted into the room and you've got to be careful not to step on the toes of 10-20 other people at all times. Good luck with that."

That sounds a lot like the user experience of Facebook, for users who have incompatible groups of family and friends. You know your college friends would appreciate that Bernie Sanders quote, but if you share it on Facebook then your Ted-Nugent-wannabe uncle might flip out. The similarity is surely not coincidental. It's a variant of Conway's law.

I'm always surprised to see the awful spaces these companies come up with in SV, having been to both FB and Goog's london offices, which are both very nice.

It's not the companies coming up with the spaces. It's the architects who want to make a name for themselves and earn their astronomical paychecks.

The companies are approving them and paying for them, and thus bear the ultimate responsibility for their designs.

The architect of Facebook's new building is Frank Gehry, already well known for his works: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Gehry

Frank Gehry definitely doesn't have to make a name for himself. I'm surprised by how unattractive this is. Though, come to think of it, I can't picture the interior of any Frank Gehry buildings while I can see lots of exteriors.

Maybe this is all a colossal puton by Gehry: he hates offices so he makes them crappy. Except companies aren't that smart and end up worshipping the design.

It is quite interesting to see how Facebook and other corporations are re branding open-office, which in practice looks like a factory of workers. Somehow, the idea is to convince people that it promotes openness and productivity. Someone in the article says it is easy for her to schedule meetings on the fly, which also means it is easy for her to access the employees. However, not sure if I would like to be so accessible when I want to zone in, and work on a project.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's desk is exactly like all the others.

Really? I bet it isn't. I bet his desk isn't used for sustained state of flow concentration on intricate abstract mechanisms.

What's that saying about the law being equal by equally forbidding the the poor and the rich from sleeping under bridges and stealing apples?

The open plan office helps CEO and workers be approachable, interruptable, and able to hold many impromptu meetings.

How do people get anything done on single screen setups like this?

If you include their laptops then they're all double screen really

no not really.

my laptop screen is dramatically smaller than my normal screen and the dpi differ as well. so screen + laptop <> 2 x screen.

I don't like working with my back to the room. To feel fully well while working, I need some kind of wall behind me. I can't picture me working in this... thing.

Well this looks like a great breeding ground for the next big plague. If one person gets sick, it'll spread around the entire company?

Also looks strangely reminiscent of the industrial revolution. http://3219a2.medialib.glogster.com/jayytyler97/media/c6/c60...

Facebook has an unlimited sick leave policy. If people are contagious they can work from home, if they are too sick to work from home they can rest until they are better.

I agree that the design is not ideal but I think the company culture tries to mitigate some of the negative aspects by being so flexible with various policies.

The article is so enthusiastic, but it makes me sad. Work is where people spend the majority of their time. This environment is bound to be stressful and unhealthy.

As for closed doors: just leave them open, problem solved. Or, these days, just send a message via some chat application to your colleague and walk over once they invite you via chat.

If it's not only software, where would the hardware people sit, or even embedded programmers with their dev. kits?

I understand the idea of allowing people to sit everywhere. I don't understand why they don't come up with a technological solution to get your desk setup of the previous day.

The last office that writer mentions is the actual office of Mark, he is the only one with an office.

Facebook offices have very interesting stuff, the roof garden has an amazing view of the bay, trees from different parts of California and wonderful artwork from local artists that you can see all around the office.

I saw before this type of setup in Tesla, were the only way to know which is Elon's desk, is by someone telling you. But also not long time ago he used to sit in the plant floor where the only items in his desk where the best car of the year award and his wallet.

This type of setup in my opinion foster productivity, people realize that the only thing that they have to be doing is work. And the founder lead by example.

Unless the type of work you do requires concentration, and you are easily distracted by external stimuli.

Looks kind of horrible.

But before we all emulate facebook, has anybody figured out how effective they are? I don't know how much "innovation" goes on there or how much actual work they get done. Somehow it feels like you could get by with one tenth of that population. Or maybe I just don't understand all the great features and innovations they must be adding to facebook every day (with thousands of coders etc.). Haven't noticed much change in facebook during the couple of years I have been using it. Maybe they all spend their time "monetizing" me...

"The design reflects Facebook’s emphasis on openness and transparency"

Right...

I have a friend and ex colleague that work there and they enjoy it - I have setup an open plan working space and I work somewhere now where a lot of people work from home.

I think having a space which you want to come into and work is incredibly valuable - catering to the variety of ideals is very very hard - nice to see people making the effort!

This is just a sly way of turning knowledge workers into factory workers. We all work in sweatshops now. It's just another way to increase profits by minimizing real estate costs. "Oh, it's not a sweatshop. It's the collaborative workplace of the future." Fuck you.

I know this is HN but could we (maybe for 2016?) quit confusing Silicon Valley with the rest of the world. There is nothing in TFA or Facebook's new headquarters (or Google, or Apple) that says anything about real work being taken place anywhere else.

I wonder if they're "allowed" to browse their personal Facebook profiles?

c. 1890

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a8/Sweatshop-189...

any one knows what are those cables hanging from the ceiling?

Mostly networking and regular power. There is no power/network running through the cement floor, it's all dropped down from overhead.

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