Silicon Valley Rethinks Its Office Design. NewsWire

NewsWire: 8/14/21

• With remote work, what’s going to happen to Silicon Valley’s fancy offices? Some companies are renovating to emphasize meeting spaces, while others are doing away with physical headquarters altogether. (The Economist)
• NH: Juice bars. Espresso machines. Bean bag chairs. Ping pong tables. All these things have become staples in Silicon Valley offices. But increased WFH threatens to make these pricey workplaces ghost towns. 
• Before Covid-19, Silicon Valley execs poured massive sums of money into their HQs. Uber’s (UBER) San Francisco office cost the company $130M to construct. And Uber will additionally pay over $1B in leases over the next 20 years. Down the road in Cupertino, Apple's (AAPL) office reportedly cost a whopping $5B to build. And just next door, the Googleplex (GOOGL) probably didn’t cost much less.

• But now, many tech companies are permanently adopting some form of telecommuting. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz surveyed its 226 portfolio companies on the future of the workspace. Two-thirds responded that their firm will continue to embrace a hybrid model. So what does that mean for these offices?
• As we predicted a few months back, many Silicon Valley buildings are changing to become more communal meeting spaces than places for individual work. (See “The Future of Telecommuting and the Office.”) M. Moser Associates, a San Francisco office designer, is already planning for most new offices to be mostly meeting areas. Okta (OKTA), an identity management firm, already remodeled their workplace to make more room for gathering and less room for desks. 

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• Red States Loosen Gun Laws. One might assume from the National Rifle Association’s recent legal and money troubles that the organization is losing power. But this isn’t the case. New state laws give gun owners more protections than ever. As of July, six states—Texas, Utah, Tennessee, Iowa, Wyoming, and Montana—have passed permitless-carry laws this year. These laws allow adults to carry concealed firearms in public without a license, background check, or training course. That brings the total number of permitless carry states to 21. The latest to join the list was Texas, which is by far the largest of the states with such a law. Meanwhile, at least nine states have passed legislation banning or discouraging the police from enforcing federal gun laws. These laws illustrate the widening gap between Republican-controlled state legislatures and Washington, where Democrats continue to press for increased gun restrictions. And they come as shootings and homicides keep rising, even as other forms of crime decline.