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Comment by heisenbit | Hacker News Reader

Steve Jobs is said to have poured in a lot of thought on how the architecture of the building is supporting work. Steve also had some architectural experience from Pixar. On the macro level the alignment of the architecture with the organization as it was explained always made sense to me.

On the micro level changing from offices to open floor is a huge change. How was that supposed to preserve and foster the engineering culture? Apple is the company where walls and secrets are not accident but carefully designed. I could imagine a part of the organization going to open floor but the whole building?

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For all the loving of open offices, I've never seen an exec that works in an open area themselves. I heard about one, but never saw it with my own eyes.

This is in 30+ years of working.

Me neither. I am still waiting for the company where all the VPs sit along one table elbow to elbow.

Of course. What execs love about open spaces is the money it saves on office layout and walls.

On my previous job I sat right next to VP of product but she would often use the office of the SVP who is not around most of the time.

Open space office with more than 50 people on each floor, it was very interesting for a while(as you can see how $2B business is run in one picture) but it was one of the primary reasons I quit.

Beyond the ongoing noice and distractions, it doesn't allow you to have cycles of work and thought. Well, I actually would have them but it feels weird to be the guy who stares at random things and people for prolonged time :)

My VP doesn't even really have an office. He finds an open spot and sits his laptop down.

This is at one of the majors.

It doesn't matter, those people are in meetings all day anyway.

HP started with a "no offices" culture where even senior execs had cubes, but I have to think this is long gone.

i worked next to a billionaire software co-founder for 4 years, right in the pit with all of us (open office). i found it unbelievably awesome - humanizing, motivating, and egalitarian.

Who wants to get 3/4 of the way through the construction and admit your brand new building isn't big enough? Easier to just shove everyone in.

Apple is usually a smart company, but it is always a large company, and large companies are prone to making broad one-size-fits-all mistakes.

> ...and admit your brand new building isn't big enough?

How do companies believe in ever-lasting growth and then not reflect that in their plans on usage of space? Feels like cognitive dissonance to me.

If it were a person, sure, but it's a company so it's just shitty leadership exposing a lack of coordination among various discrete entities.

Just do what Amazon is doing, and build another one. Not enough room? Erect another skyscraper.

And another one. Then a third.

And then when you start facing the prospect of your employees getting lynched by locals who are furious about their rent, ask some other cities if they might have room.

My prediction for the future: Amazon's internal transfer process is extremely smooth. Seattle is not gonna weather the opening of this second HQ well, once it gets up and running. But the point is, you gotta keep moving forwards - it's always day 1, right?

When I had my internship at Amazon it was mostly cubicles. It's actually quite annoying and I had to have my earphones to get work done. Is it any different now?

What is it that makes sense to you on the macro level? That the building is donut shaped?

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