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Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

I like the idea of Startup Chile. After reading this article, I still like most of it, except for trust issues.

I'm not in favor of video surveillance, but if I ran Startup Chile, I'd be adding some cameras all over the place. Maybe go to a badge system for building access and egress.

Not being safe enough to leave your gear on the desk while you go to lunch or something is a big red flag that something's wrong. You can't have an open and free environment when folks are having to padlock everything they own and don't trust the guy next to them not to walk off with their iPad.

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I had my laptop stolen at the Startup Chile office and the Startup Chile team helped me get it back because of surveillance cameras. I am the only person this has happened to (at least from what I know). I think you can get things stolen in any co-work environment and there is no way Startup Chile can control this (other than doing what they already do).

If you are uncomfortable with the security aspect you can get an office for around $600/month (I am currently sharing an office with an Argentinean company and we split things $300/month). Our office is rather large (it's 3 offices, one bathroom and one kitchen).

The office spaces don’t have decent lighting and it’s not safe - you can’t leave your stuff on the table even for 5 minutes, a lot of it might get stolen - This sounds kind of crazy to be honest. As I'm front some deep places in eastern europe I wouldn't leave any of my stuff in any places. Especially considering the fact that the work on the laptop is probably more valuable than the machine itself. But this is a shared office space. You just wouldn't expect something like that to happen. And from my point of view - Startup Chile team helped me get it back - is not really much of an excuse. Did they just leave the door open? Or were the participants of the program just nicking stuff from each other?

Yeah, this is something I'd expect at the joint co-working offices more than the Start-Up Chile office itself. However, they do leave the doors wide open while people are working there. Anyone can wave at the doorman and take the elevator up to the office for a rummage around. The reception desk doesn't have a good view of who is coming and going from 60% of the office space.

> Especially considering the fact that the work on the laptop is probably more valuable than the machine itself.

I'd hope then that you are using proper backups, it's a lot easier to keep copies of your work remotely, than make a copy of a laptop.

There's also the intellectual property facet of this. Someone who steals your work could try and sell it to your competitors. This includes code as well as a list of your clients and your business plans.

If you are a developer and you have not encrypted your IP on a laptop you are going to leave by itself, well, your shareholders would probably be pretty disappointed.

>. I think you can get things stolen in any co-work environment and there is no way Startup Chile can control this (other than doing what they already do).

Sorta? My company incubated at StartX and we thought nothing of leaving our stuff on our desks while we left to do other things. The thought of having our things stolen was just unrealistic.

To turn tables round, not having to worry about my stuff left on the desk while working in a shared office is something unthinkable for me, as a Pole. Kinda envious.

The office is in Palo Alto, same building as AOL. Our company probably had some of the poorest people in a 2 sq mile radius. Yuppie-ville :P

Same building as AOL? What's the accessibility, curious? If there's card swiping security, it's not apples and apples.

To clarify the theft issue (I'm Round 2, almost finished here now). At the start the co-working CMI office was safe, we guess that no 'regular folk' knew about it.

Now it is better known and there's no access control (there are security guys on the doors, but they're not really checking us). Several times in the last few months different strangers have walked in, spotted a lone laptop and walked off with it. The same thing has happened in restaurants.

This is petty theft, a pity in a co-work environment but given that it is large and open this is somewhat unavoidable. I wouldn't leave my laptop unattended (without asking a neighbour etc) in a London co-work space either.

In general I feel very safe here (really, no problems walking home for an hour at night, using the metro etc).

They should implement Bait-Notebooks (like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_car) with GPS, camera and recording everything.

Then just leave them there in accessible places and catch the thieves.

> Not being safe enough to leave your gear on the desk while you go to lunch or something is a big red flag that something's wrong. You can't have an open and free environment when folks are having to padlock everything they own and don't trust the guy next to them not to walk off with their iPad.

That just seems really weird... Is it other people in the program, or do outside people have access, or...?

Changing subjects, I hope someone will do an analysis of the whole program 5 years from now to see what the results of it are. How many companies came/stayed/grew/died/etc...

I'd love to see that. I think there are many useful things to pick up and re-try.

From reading the article, sounds like it's a free-for-fall. That's good: chaos is our friend. But it also sounds like (reading between the lines) people used political connections to free-ride and perhaps they didn't get a lot of traction that they could have had. Don't know, just guessing. I'm still extremely interested in the intersection of Agile/Lean and startup incubator/boot camps.

I hope someone will do an analysis of the whole program 5 years from now to see what the results of it are. How many companies came/stayed/grew/died/etc...

Good point. It would be also interesting to know how the perception of Chile has changed in entrepreneurial circles through this program. I think this is really a unique idea and so far it seems as they did at least an acceptable job of running it.

Hey stfu! .. haha.. im part of the program and i think it has changed the point of view of some chileans. By now i have done mentorship for two university students and im sure their life-path has changed.

One of them has already raised $16k (little but enough for a 2-months project).

The other one is still developing the project but at least is working on it :).

None of those guys was taking this seriously until they saw young people being part of Startup Chile program. This is just the people i have been in close contact with and im pretty sure there are lots of cases like this ones.

Very cool, that's really a great way of giving back! I really hope that this is going to have a sustainable impact for Chile. They definitely deserve it for taking such a unique way of stimulating an innovative environment. How do you see generally speaking the "sticking" rate? What percentage of people in the program are most likely to stay there for longer than just the time they got the Startup Chile financing?

Quick update today (Friday 29th) - I just spotted freestanding 'check in' finger print readers in the CMI coworking building.

My guess is that registered folk get to walk through and everyone else has to explain their presence. It should be a good deterrent. Photo: https://twitter.com/ianozsvald/status/218833445760139264

Well there are cameras in the office, but still, the house is open and somehow it still happens, unfortunately too often. There are some new lockers now and people watch each other's stuff, but in general you're hanging around with your bag the whole day. And getting a monitor into the office is just out of the question.

It sounds like a problem that could be solved by proximity cards. Has this been suggested to the CMI personnel? Is it something that they'd implement?

I am starting Startup Chile at the end of July and I am seriously considering a shared office space, due to many reasons (security being one of them)

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