Basically, a 6-8br+ luxury house ($5-15k/mo to rent) to start (since that seems like the cheapest way to get all the features I want); a commercial space (not class A office space, but a light industrial building or warehouse) could be retrofitted, but the tenant improvement budget would have to be high. I'd rather drop $10k/mo on a 6k sf house with 5 acre grounds vs. $5/ft3/mo for a 1000 sf office.
Parking onsite (behind a gate; outdoor is fine). I guess walking or shuttle to mass transit, but I drive.
Walking distance to restaurants is ideal, otherwise onsite catering, waiter.com, etc.
Bathrooms with showers.
Crash space.
Private offices which have entire walls which can open to common workspace.
Plenty of conference/meeting rooms in various sizes, with the ability to do complex video tasks easily (recording, streaming, teleconferencing, connecting ipads or phones or whatever to big screens)
Customized individual workstations (a base being laptop + desktop and 3 x 24" and 1 x 30", keyboard, mouse, aeron, big desk). No real need for conformity.
802.11n (well set up) and gig-e, with 100M WAN connectivity to colo and Internet. (gig-e better). Ability to put random desktop and lab ethernets on arbitrary VLANs with equipment in the colo.
Package/mail receiving service (for work and personal packages)
Non-stupid IT (basically, Facebook style) -- if you need something, and you can get it faster than the IT process, you buy it (and then IT gets to try to fix their own process); IT is there to speed things up, not save costs.
Stocked kitchen with drinks (I'd do unlimited free drinks no matter what; free food too if budget isn't an issue).
Individually adjustable climate control (multi-zone residential HVAC with louvers per room; spot coolers if you need more control.)
Great security (strong perimeter, and no one walking around unescorted; can leave $10k in cash sitting on your desk without fear if it being stolen, including by cleaning staff)
Fantasy, probably: Permissive carry policy onsite, onsite armory (maybe this is a fantasy...), onsite range (air is ok if residential, otherwise smallbore indoor would be awesome)
A typical house would require extensive retrofitting to meet the applicable codes (e.g. structural, egress, fire suppression, and accessibility) due to the change of occupancy - never mind zoning and other land use regulations.
For a small scale startup (where customers never visit -- not retail or legal/medical services), the only practical concern is neighbors, as far as I've seen. Maybe once you have 10-20 employees working onsite that changes (I've never done the villa-office thing in the US beyond 5-10 people).
Also, a lot of the larger homes actually are built to commercial standards, at least from what I've seen in listings, especially in seismic zones. Sprinklers and egress are what I primarily care about; non-ADA-compliance is only incidentally a concern (being able to move racks, furniture, etc. around is great, but I don't need every bathroom to be ADA compliant).
Zoning is an issue once neighbors complain (and usually, it's due to parking issues; having 20 cars street parked in a neighborhood is a big inconvenience to them) -- that's why you want a driveway with a gate. In general in Northern CA, the actual zoning people don't care about violations of home office -> office as long as it's not causing trouble for others -- there are numerous examples (Facebook, HP, ...) where homes have been used as offices. Not putting up signage, not having customers visit, etc. is generally enough from what I've seen.
My long term plan involves a ranch/farm/estate/country home in a no-code location, though.
Most larger homes are not built to comply with the building codes requirements of commercial structures (e.g. stairs: 100psf live, 42" guards, 1.25" diameter handrails, etc.) and the optimism embodied in real-estate listings is legendary.
Legally, pretty much everything must comply with ADA- and in California and several other states you can be sued for damages (though if you are in California and read the newspaper I suspect you have seen something about such cases).
Of course people do stuff illegally all the time - you could fill the house with grow lights and pot plants. But things have changed a bit in the 70 years since HP left the garage.
Comments
Basically, a 6-8br+ luxury house ($5-15k/mo to rent) to start (since that seems like the cheapest way to get all the features I want); a commercial space (not class A office space, but a light industrial building or warehouse) could be retrofitted, but the tenant improvement budget would have to be high. I'd rather drop $10k/mo on a 6k sf house with 5 acre grounds vs. $5/ft3/mo for a 1000 sf office.
Parking onsite (behind a gate; outdoor is fine). I guess walking or shuttle to mass transit, but I drive.
Walking distance to restaurants is ideal, otherwise onsite catering, waiter.com, etc.
Bathrooms with showers.
Crash space.
Private offices which have entire walls which can open to common workspace.
Plenty of conference/meeting rooms in various sizes, with the ability to do complex video tasks easily (recording, streaming, teleconferencing, connecting ipads or phones or whatever to big screens)
Customized individual workstations (a base being laptop + desktop and 3 x 24" and 1 x 30", keyboard, mouse, aeron, big desk). No real need for conformity.
802.11n (well set up) and gig-e, with 100M WAN connectivity to colo and Internet. (gig-e better). Ability to put random desktop and lab ethernets on arbitrary VLANs with equipment in the colo.
Package/mail receiving service (for work and personal packages)
Non-stupid IT (basically, Facebook style) -- if you need something, and you can get it faster than the IT process, you buy it (and then IT gets to try to fix their own process); IT is there to speed things up, not save costs.
Stocked kitchen with drinks (I'd do unlimited free drinks no matter what; free food too if budget isn't an issue).
Individually adjustable climate control (multi-zone residential HVAC with louvers per room; spot coolers if you need more control.)
Great security (strong perimeter, and no one walking around unescorted; can leave $10k in cash sitting on your desk without fear if it being stolen, including by cleaning staff)
Fantasy, probably: Permissive carry policy onsite, onsite armory (maybe this is a fantasy...), onsite range (air is ok if residential, otherwise smallbore indoor would be awesome)
Swimming pool.
A typical house would require extensive retrofitting to meet the applicable codes (e.g. structural, egress, fire suppression, and accessibility) due to the change of occupancy - never mind zoning and other land use regulations.
For a small scale startup (where customers never visit -- not retail or legal/medical services), the only practical concern is neighbors, as far as I've seen. Maybe once you have 10-20 employees working onsite that changes (I've never done the villa-office thing in the US beyond 5-10 people).
Also, a lot of the larger homes actually are built to commercial standards, at least from what I've seen in listings, especially in seismic zones. Sprinklers and egress are what I primarily care about; non-ADA-compliance is only incidentally a concern (being able to move racks, furniture, etc. around is great, but I don't need every bathroom to be ADA compliant).
Zoning is an issue once neighbors complain (and usually, it's due to parking issues; having 20 cars street parked in a neighborhood is a big inconvenience to them) -- that's why you want a driveway with a gate. In general in Northern CA, the actual zoning people don't care about violations of home office -> office as long as it's not causing trouble for others -- there are numerous examples (Facebook, HP, ...) where homes have been used as offices. Not putting up signage, not having customers visit, etc. is generally enough from what I've seen.
My long term plan involves a ranch/farm/estate/country home in a no-code location, though.
Most larger homes are not built to comply with the building codes requirements of commercial structures (e.g. stairs: 100psf live, 42" guards, 1.25" diameter handrails, etc.) and the optimism embodied in real-estate listings is legendary.
Legally, pretty much everything must comply with ADA- and in California and several other states you can be sued for damages (though if you are in California and read the newspaper I suspect you have seen something about such cases).
Of course people do stuff illegally all the time - you could fill the house with grow lights and pot plants. But things have changed a bit in the 70 years since HP left the garage.