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Comment by meric | Hacker News Reader

Hmm I work in an open plan office - What if the reason we're doing so is because rent is expensive and we're a startup?

In that case it would appear to be unavoidable. However, when comparing the costs between offices I think it is important to take lost productivity in to account.

When looking at $cost_of_office_with_private_space versus $cost_of_open_plan_office it might make sense to go for the open plan office.

But $cost_of_office_with_private_space versus ($cost_of_open_plan_office + $productivity_cost) might lead to a different conclusion.

So how do you measure $productivity_cost accurately? Do you account for cases like where employee A, B and C come in the shared office with a new kind of idea going to rocket your business revenues to sky level?

> So how do you measure $productivity_cost accurately?

With great difficulty :)

You're right, and I think your question helps strengthen my point - the cost of office space is just one factor.

Indeed - definitely agree on this!

I've got no problem with "ramen profitable" startups doing it out of necessity— after all, there's a lot of non-optimal things new companies do. What I object to are companies that are flush with cash, profitable— maybe they've even IPO'd— and can afford to foster a productive work environment, but believe open floor plans are the way to go because Facebook does it.

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