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Comment by unit91 | Hacker News Reader

Author's theory: the Big Guy moved the company HQ to the suburbs because he's out to get you, especially if you aren't white.

My theory: the Big Guy moved out of downtown because land and taxes are cheaper, many (most?) people enjoy seeing green as opposed to concrete, and the commute is often (not always) better, since most people live in the suburbs anyway. Couple that with an up-and-coming municipality willing to subsidize the building and infrastructure and you've got quite a lot of cash left in the budget. What do you do with it? Build an impressive structure, with the perks and eye-candy to lure the talent you're hoping to hire and retain.

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Research shows that ~80% of the time that a company moves, it moves closer to where the CEO lives.

Joel Garreau, Edge City

That makes sense. If a selection process comes down to several equally good options, people are going to let their personal preferences weigh in.

Yep, saw that happen with at least one company. When the lease was about to expire at the office the CEO wanted to relocate the office to the far south suburbs, where he lives, even though it meant 2x-3x longer commute for all but a couple of the employees there, and people were already driving 30-45 minutes to get there.

I'm not sure these cases are parallel, though. The article is discussing "America's most innovative companies", meaning the behemoths: Apple, Bell, IBM, etc. I haven't read the book, but from poking around on Amazon, it seems to be discussing mostly small and midsize privately-owned businesses. In those situations, I can absolutely see the whims of one person playing a much more central role than in large companies with shareholders to answer to. After all, most small businesses are started by people who (naturally) work near their homes.

Whatever the causes may be, the effects are the same: these large institutional office parks are designed to isolate employees and reinforce the automobile-centric suburban lifestyle.

The author's point is that the so-called great innovators of today--Apple and Google are cited--are really doing nothing to innovate the workspace, despite having plenty of opportunity to do so.

But what would the opportunity costs of that be? Their core competencies are not in "innovating the workspace". There's a chance they could come up with something cool, but an equal chance they'd come up with something bad. For the most part, it seems like doing this is not hurting recruitment.

>The author's point is that the so-called great innovators of today--Apple and Google are cited--are really doing nothing to innovate the workspace, despite having plenty of opportunity to do so.

Somehow I suspect that this "innovation" they are required to do just happens to line up perfectly with the author's own personal and political preferences.

Author seems to have an issue with park space too. As if more dead concrete is what we need.

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