The Startup Life – Sunshine, Movies, and Freedom

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June 27th, 2008

I’ve been at the new job for 4 weeks now. I was coming from a small company (~30 people), but this is a different level. Right now there are just two of us, in a room with no windows (“The Dungeon”) that we are subletting from another company. We are right in the middle of their office, so we have to walk past their cubicles to get to our area. The location of the office is great, though; it is right in downtown San Fran, just 2 blocks away from my old office. But even though it is close in proximity, the work environment of a startup is definitely different, and I love it.

Today, the whole company went out to the movies for the premiere of WALL-E. Of course, this is much easier to do when the whole company is only 2 people, but still the spirit/mentality is much different than in a larger corporation. I had expected that theatre for a matinee would be pretty empty except for a few kids on summer vacation, but the place was pretty packed. And the best part was, we fit right in – I think the majority of people there were startup employees. Only in San Francisco…

Another benefit of the startup life is being able to work where you want when you want. Don’t have to worry about the usual corporate bulls*** like “face time”, all that matters is that you get your work done. A couple weeks ago, on one of those beautiful summer days that are so rare in San Francisco, I spent the afternoon working outside in Golden Gate Park. This was like a dream of mine come true. I love being outdoors and enjoying warm, sunny days, but on weekdays (ie work days) these days often go wasted while everyone piles into the office buildings with their air conditioning and artificial lighting. It was always seemed like a pipe dream to spend time outside on these gorgeous days, but now it has a become a reality for me.

While some people may think that this is unreasonable and leads to lower productivity, I actually believe the opposite. I think that if companies remove some of the unnecessary restrictions/rules and give employees more freedom to work when, where, and how they want to, then those employees will be happier and more productive.  This is one of the themes of a book I recently read, The Seven-Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler, which I recommend.

Finally, while our office itself may not be very impressive, we do have some nice tech equipment. How do you make a developer happy? Easy, give him a brand new MacBook Pro laptop and a 30″ Monitor! Now, I have always been a Windows guy, so the Mac is a bit of an adjustment for me but it is definitely a very nice machine.

All in all, I am enjoying the startup experience so far and definitely learning alot.