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Comment by amix | Hacker News Reader

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).

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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.

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