I strongly doubt that the campus is any more of a force multiplier than a collection of far cheaper class A office buildings of similar capacity, with similarly serene grass and vegetation connecting them.
But, no, it’s not a force multiplier vs a more pedestrian setting.
Much more important is the people you interact with every day, both in person and at a distance. If I had to choose between jobs doing the same work but one was in a closet but interacting with people I like or the apple campus and interacting with people I felt no connection to, I would take the former in a heartbeat.
I don't think I'm an outlier. If indeed I'm not, what does that say for how important and special Apple HQ will end up being in the long run?
Even in an online office! When I had Slack, I felt much more involved with people and the company (500+ employees) culture overall. Ever since they transitioned to Teams, I feel like I only exist within my own team.
A pleasant and aesthetic office, surround by nature, built with sustainability in mind, etc is already a driving force for the type of culture you want instilled in your company.
It will certainly attract a type of people that want to work surrounded by beauty, it’s already paving the way for a common ground of understanding.
It goes much further than just wonder. It’s a feeling that persists. A nice feeling.
Culture does matter for this as well though, as enjoying your coworkers but not the culture may still make the job somewhere you don't want to stick around.
I think physical surroundings may help with the culture some, but they'll always be a much lesser influence than the people and policies in place. What's worse, sometimes companies will think the physical surroundings are much more important than they are, and focus on those instead of fixing the policies destroying their actual work culture. I think most people past their early twenties would much rather have a better set of work policies than a really good view out of an office window. Sometimes that's doubly true because those policies might allow you to spend less time in the office and more time at home, around your real family.
I was once like that. Until I get over my anxiety and started to hang out more with girls. Especially from the arts and languages side.
The way they choose their environments… where they go to eat out or have a coffee, the clothing they wear, buying flowers, how they setup their home…
Even when I was down, being in their environments just made me feel more cozy. It was heartwarming.
In contrast, most of my engineer friends have either literally a mattress and a desk. Or, they just buy for their house whatever, without any thought in regards to color pallete, textures, shape, etc
You’re describing my first two apartments. I only wound up buying a couch and a coffee table because I wanted to appear somewhat normal in case a woman came by my apartment.
The combination of design work, history of buildings/art/cities, and socialization with people hyperfocused on their surroundings gives you superpower awareness of great environments at every scale, from silverware to regional planning. It makes travel a joy, no matter where, Paris or Poughkeepsie, it’s all fascinating.
On the downside, there are impossible odds you’ll ever get to actually create any of what you imagine, and the horrors of miserable design, a world full of McMansions and cheap junk, will crap all over your visions of paradise.
Not that Apple is a bad company or place to work or anything, but it also isn't some magic zen garden that will imbue all who work there with the power to change the world.
For 90%+ of the people who go to work there, it's a job, and the scenery changing that equation meaningfully seems like wishful thinking. It might be nice, but it's not going to radically alter your output.
https://www.macworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Jons-and...
I'm pretty sure (strike that, am certain) the secret sauce is not the office.
Apple Park: it kinda sucks to actually work at Apple Park. It’s a goldfish bowl. It’s impossible to focus. But, yes, it looks really nice. It’s very pretty, that is undeniable.
Also, Teslas and Mercedes aren’t exotic or rare. They just cost a bit more than most Hondas. And the rare, occasional actual exotic doesn’t inspire new features, better design, or QA polish, they just indicate someone’s a pretentious ass with more money than sense. Remember that Steve drove a fairly pedestrian Mercedes.
Here's a forum post saying they were selling for $160k at dealerships https://mbworld.org/forums/sl-class-r230/25583-how-much-2003...
Really not a "pedestrian" Mercedes, at the time it would have been in the upper tier of their price range. The current-day SL AMG model starts at $178k.
And he leased a new one every 6 months.
Tell me you live in a rich neighborhood without telling me you do.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/how-s...
Sometimes what people think they want isn't what they actually want once they experience it. People unhappy and surrounded by drab office space might pine for a beautiful setting to work in, but I suspect most of them will find that it wasn't the lack of beauty making them unhappy and that a change of scenery doesn't do nearly enough to rectify the problem.
Lack of environmental enrichment is not what gets in the way of innovation.