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Comment by freeplay | Hacker News Reader

If you get enough friends to come over, eventually you can all pitch in and rent a small property that is centrally located between all of you. You could stock the kitchen with coffee and healthy snacks. Maybe you could even get a whiteboard and a ping pong table!

Wait a minute...

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You joke, but this would be a good idea (I think: I could never get anyone to do it with me). The difference between this and an office would be that you'd only have to go in when you wanted, and it would be located in a place convenient to the people involved, rather than just downtown, or in an office park. You'd also have more control over how it was arranged. Plenty of downsides too of course.

> Plenty of downsides too of course.

Managing the rental (or ownership) comes to mind first. The rest of the logistics surrounding "stock the kitchen with coffee and healthy snacks" comes next. The "have more control over how it was arranged" part also comes with "need to make a bunch of decisions you didn't have to before".

(Essentially just playing devil's advocate; not trying to argue for or against the idea. I'm sure many people would prefer such a set up and many others would not.)

You'd just start a partnership or corporation, assign shares, receive stakes from people, and go in using that entity on an office space.

It's a joke but a huge difference between this and an office is you only have to be around the coworkers you like

And you don't have to work for the same company, which means if you change jobs you don't suddenly lose your social network.

And the friends you work with can refer you to another job while you all still cowork.

Oh man that would actually be pretty great! Except for the hassle of having to organize everything, and the financial risk of taking on a big lease, but maybe with the right friend group you'd have people with strengths in those areas. In theory a coworking space with camaraderie like that would be the best of both worlds - you get to have a place that you can work that's not your home, where there's actual people you can interact with that you get along with, but if you switch jobs you don't have to suddenly give that up. Also potentially you could end up recruiting each other, or referring each other for consulting gigs, or working on joint business ventures together.

I had some coworkers that did this. They (husband and wife) lived on a farm with iffy power and internet so they eventually bought a house in some nearby suburbs mostly to work from.

I see what you did there!

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