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Comment by ulfw | Hacker News Reader

They have moved way past the 'we cater to startups' mantra and have gone to catering to large corporations who want to get that 'startup feel'. I was visiting HSBC IT folks in Hong Kong last month, the largest and most established bank in town, maybe the most conservative one. Their digital teams were working out of a rented floor at Wework in Causeway Bay, HK Island. With a small cafe inside. Seemed very un-banking like and that's exactly why they went there a year ago - http://www.scmp.com/property/hong-kong-china/article/2021679...

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Allianz (huge insurance company) just opened some kind of branded co-working / barista bar / meetup space in the middle of one of Berlin’s “edgiest” neigbourhoods. It’s frankly quite hilarious and a fantastic example of cargo culting. The slogans on the wall, the lighting, the tables: it all feels like a WeWork mashup with a Google office made by someone from some remote island who just read about all this stuff. Google Allianz F200.

It's not just Allianz. I've worked with a bank founded in the 16th century who rented office space next to their main building, plastered with agile motivation propaganda posters of the worst kind [1]. Supposedly, they're doing it to attract young developers, and to build up fast-moving teams so FinTech startups don't get all the talent.

[1]: https://www.startupvitamins.con/

Allianz also has the Global Digital Factory. A startup like place to develop IT ideas in Munich. Looks just as fancy as your example.

https://globaldigitalfactory.allianz.com

Cargo 'cult' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

I work for a similar company and all of the IT floors have also adopted the very trendy startup setup. The irony being that IT in large bank is by far the most bureaucratic part of the bank, to an extreme (you will not discuss with anyone without going through a ticket system - even developers, they will rather bankrupt the bank than deviate from a policy or procedure, planned work has to go through twenty committees before anyone will even lift a finger, etc). And they are as agile as an elephant (despite lecturing the rest of the bank on how they too can get stuff done by adopting agile!).

Can’t agree more. OTOH a random shmuck from the Trading Room will bet millions on a daily basis with little or no supervision. Until of course they lose big on a stupid bet and everyone is busy finding “the idiot to blame”

Random schmuck here. There's tons of supervision, communication with research and clients, oversight, and risk limitation. Also, you can't make big bets without occasionally losing, and people usually know exactly whom to blame. (Sometimes it's not the trader whose position blew up, but the desk manager or senior sales person who fought for the trade, or even a client who had inside info on a deal.)

The only truly stupid bets are the illegal and/or unauthorized ones.

And yet, 2008 happened. Look, everyone knows that the ICT red tape is just theater and CYA, but please don’t pretend your own is different...

its a placebo for multinationals to get people to innovate

There are a bunch of coworking space accelerators in silicon valley which are occupied by some small unprofitable divisions of megacorps, their “alpha bets”

Started the interview process (via recruiter) for HSBC in HK as I was looking to work for a larger/more established company than the start ups I've been working with and the coworking space was a turn off for me.

They have moved way past the 'we cater to startups' mantra and have gone to catering to large corporations who want to get that 'startup feel'.

I'll let you know when it comes to my employer (BigCo in the Midwest) because it will mean the trend has ended.

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