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I remember a suggestion to place all startups in a death pool which they were only allowed to leave if they managed not to buy any Aeron chairs (those were all the rage at that time) after one year in business. I loved that idea.

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My company was featured in a story on Herman Miller, where we spent more on Chairs then we had in revenue for the entire 24 months of our existence.

The other side of this, is the company I worked for about that time, purchased the entire set of office furniture from a defunct company to setup our office when we moved. Turns out we didn't need it all, and sold a lot of it. At the end of the year, the majority of our profit was the furniture hussle.

At the end of the first dot-com boom, there was a place in San Jose called Consolidated Office Supply which bought the furniture of failed dot-coms. They had a warehouse which covered an entire city block, full of used furniture. Looked like the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I bought furniture there for something I was starting up. Very cheap, and they delivered.

I am currently sitting in an Aeron chair from one of the dot com bust furniture auctions... I had a friend who rescued servers just abandoned in their racks when one company just folded mid-day, the last remaining guy just walked out of the office. Crazy times.

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