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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Last place I worked, we moved just a few blocks away, from a really, really awful crappy warehouse in Sunnyvale to a pretty spiffy new facility also in Sunnyvale. I don't think we lost anyone due to that move. So, lesson is to make sure your new office is awesome and not that geographically far from your old one?

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Sunnyvale is a bit of a different story because I assume everyone is driving to an office in Sunnyvale, at least the last mile, so you can move a mile and not impact anyone that much.

Up in SF, moving the office one mile can add 30 minutes to some people's daily commutes each way.

Absolutely. If lots of reddit's employees are living in the East Bay (feasible since the office is in Soma), a company move to Daly City would make their commute an absolute nightmare. A normal BART ride would turn into a reallllly long BART ride (if the office is anywhere near the station) or a soulcrushing commute over the bridge. I commuted from the Sunset District (essentially Daly City) to Oakland for a year and it was horrendous.

Meanwhile, moving from one office to another within Sunnyvale won't change much considering there are many ways to get in and out of there.

Not geographically far can limit you to a tiny distance if you have commuters on caltrain, bart, and muni. Lots of people scoff at the change going from a 5 minute walk from the transportation depot to a 15 minute walk makes, but that made me leave a company. Of course, virtually nobody doing that walk fails to understand, but execs drive.

I mean, moving a few blocks isn't that material in terms of people's commutes (and implied relative power/importance/influence).

Moving from one city to another can be highly disruptive.

riverbed?

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