> True but you don’t pay subscription for your chairs.
But in reality you kind of do - chairs are still a depreciating asset that require upkeep and maintenance. I recall at my last medium-sized company (500ish people) that every quarter they had guys come in to fix the broken chairs. I don't think the chairs were bad quality, it's just that in a company that size where the chairs got a ton of use that every quarter you'd have 10-20 chairs that needed fixing.
Startups tend to have a desire to keep capital costs as low as possible because the need to be nimble and respond quickly and deploy capital efficiently is much more important than the meager savings you'd get from buying vs. subscribing. You rarely if ever see startups buying their office space vs. renting for similar reasons.
500 people damaging 10-20 chairs per quarter is absurd, to the point of hiring a specific chair guy to come in and repair sounds like satire. My fraternity didn't even break that many chairs from people getting hammered and throwing them off the roof, and I oversaw the budget.
If I had to guess, it's people gaming the chair replacement system. This might seem surprising but its really not, employees love to do this if at all possible at any company.
My friend was just gloating to me how he finessed an $1600 standing desk and got the company to pay for it. $1600 to do what a stack of books does under your keyboard. They ordered that ridiculous desk the day he emailed the office manager about it without question, because standing desks are so hot right now in the office paraphernalia world.
But in reality you kind of do - chairs are still a depreciating asset that require upkeep and maintenance. I recall at my last medium-sized company (500ish people) that every quarter they had guys come in to fix the broken chairs. I don't think the chairs were bad quality, it's just that in a company that size where the chairs got a ton of use that every quarter you'd have 10-20 chairs that needed fixing.
Startups tend to have a desire to keep capital costs as low as possible because the need to be nimble and respond quickly and deploy capital efficiently is much more important than the meager savings you'd get from buying vs. subscribing. You rarely if ever see startups buying their office space vs. renting for similar reasons.