Some good points here:
lovemachine » Blog Archive » On The End of Offices
I predict that many companies are going to give up offices, here are some of the reasons:
Internet Anywhere: Wifi or wireless IP access is pretty much everywhere, meaning you can always be online. We carry Verizon cards that are like $50/month and give us good access even when there isn’t wifi. It’s just really simply now to be connected from anywhere, certainly for work. This wasn’t true even a couple years ago.
No more servers: All the LoveMachine servers are in the cloud – on Amazon’s EC2 servers, or Google. This includes email, intranet, calendars, development machines, etc. Again, this wasn’t possible a couple years ago. No more racks of physical hardware. I can’t fathom why a startup going forward would have a server closet.
Fun and Inspiring: Try it. Work in a hotel lobby (our favorite so far is the W in SOMA SF). Great people-watching, feels so fun to get free coffee even though you aren’t staying there. And without the crutch of being in an office, you actually feel like you need to get something done. Plus, you actually work less hours and get to see your family and friends more.
Memory Palace: There are lots of good references to read more about this, but there is a well-observed phenomena where meetings and conversations that happen in a novel location are easier to remember later. So actually the worst-case-scenario is having a recurring team meeting in a fixed meeting room! On the other hand, there are probably 2,000+ different locations available to LoveMachine just in San Francisco. It’s already a big advantage – I can easily remember meetings with people by keying to the location where we were sitting. This is a tangible competitive advantage.
Better use of Capital: In San Francisco, a startup office with room for 10 people is going to cost something like $5,000 per month for the rent, cleaning, bandwidth and other admin costs. So that’s like $500/month per person. Why don’t we just give everyone a $500 monthly budget for food and coffee and not have the office? Let’s see… would you rather “Our office is at 350 Brannan Street, we expect you to be there by 10 every morning, and we don’t cover parking”, or “Here is $500 you can use it all on coffee or maybe save it this month and instead get a hotel room at the Phoenix for your teammembers to party in all day.”
But what about security?
Do you really want your trade secrets and full control of your operation accessible from any cafe or bar? If you can control your entire business from anywhere, then anyone can. Is someone sniffing your data, logging your activity? What about financial data? Do you want to work on spreadsheets with people looking over your shoulder?
Another issue is process, familiarity, convenience and comfort–you save tons of time when you know where things are. I’m seconds away from a glass of water, a shower, a change of clothes, a comfortable bed, a treadmill, a quiet place to make a phone call, a healthy snack, etc.