Your hypothesis is perhaps ten thousand dollars of noise panels and hours of a CEO's time is material to a company and/or a factor in its success. Neither of those make or break a company. It's hardly "swagged-out", and is cheaper than other office space according to the very video you watched. Low noise levels do contribute to both productivity and someplace being nice to work in.
There's plenty of counterexamples (including several I've worked for) who have somehow succeeded despite spending relatively modest amounts of money to make the office a pleasant place instead of a loud dump with sawhorse desks and 20 year old carpeting. If you're complaining about sfbay rates, well, that's what office space costs here.
Believing spending well under one engineer's annual salary made a bad outcome more or less likely is nothing other than dumb.
> Believing spending well under one engineer's annual salary made a bad outcome more or less likely is nothing other than dumb.
Now you're being obtuse. It is the cumulative effects of leadership having out-of-whack priorities that can lead a company to the deadpool. Get it?
In any case, I'll take being Common Sense Dumb and having a successful, profitable business over being Silicon Valley Smart and handing out pink slips any day of the week.
There's plenty of counterexamples (including several I've worked for) who have somehow succeeded despite spending relatively modest amounts of money to make the office a pleasant place instead of a loud dump with sawhorse desks and 20 year old carpeting. If you're complaining about sfbay rates, well, that's what office space costs here.
Believing spending well under one engineer's annual salary made a bad outcome more or less likely is nothing other than dumb.