Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Apple's Cupertino campus
Message-ID: <35875@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 24 Oct 89 16:47:56 GMT
References: <3405@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 38

>Why doesn't Apple just build one or two big buildings and move everyone
>into one place?  In the long run, wouldn't that offer tremendous advantages
>and actually save them money?

Well, I'm certainly not an Apple spokesman on this, but here's why I think
this is a bad idea:

1) There is simply no space to build really large buildings in the Cupertino
   area.

2) Cupertino doesn't have the infrastructure to support skyscrapers (which
   would be the kind of building necessary for this) and doesn't want it,
   either (I don't blame them...)

3) To build enough really large buildings to handle the 8,000 or so people
   we have, we'd have to leave Cupertino and go to some other area. Apple's
   roots are here, we don't want to leave....

4) Really large buildings tend to be unfriendly, sterile places to work. Not
   fun. I've worked in skyscrapers (in Los Angeles). No thanks.

The reason Apple does what it does is because it puts the environment of
it's people and area above pure efficiency. And many of those 'efficiencies'
are, in my mind, false ones -- sure, you can cut down on things like
security guards and hallway square footage, but you also turn the company
from a series of close, intimate groups of people working together into a
large, faceless conglomerate where you're in a building with 1,000 other
people and know none of them. Huge buildings go against the enviroment that
makes Apple special.


-- 

Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA
chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking]

Trust Mama Nature to remind us just how important things like sci.aquaria's
name really is in the scheme of things.