I lived in LA for all my life and have worked at various places including DTLA, West LA (SM, Sawtelle), and even the SFV (Sherman Oaks). But I gotta say working at Venice (right by the beach) was truly an amazing experience. Coming to office with shorts and flip flops is a given, but heading out to the beach while getting some sun in the sands to get some Vitamin D while cooling off your head is pretty much priceless! Venice also has a pretty strong bike culture, which is pretty rare for LA standards, so you see a lot of people bike to work, which is awesome.
And some days, which is pretty much whenever we feel like it, we would just take our laptops and work right on the beach with the sun, with some towels spread out, chilling, swimming, and go for a swim and come back, then go back to work. It made me appreciate just how fun work can be and you don't have to sacrifice quality of your life just because you are working for a startup.
To me, working by the beach is seriously a no brainer, I mean more companies should be doing this! It is really hard to go back to working at an office building outside of it once you've experienced the freedom and lifestyle of being by the beach. Also, there is a big difference working close to the beach (like SM) and actually being ON the beach (Venice). I'll take the latter any day.
I could see this being really, really great for planning/requirements meetings or code review. For those things, it's really helpful to get out of the normal work space and into a slightly different mindset. For building, I agree with the other repliers: definitely helps to be in a closed off area with minimal distractions.
And some days, which is pretty much whenever we feel like it, we would just take our laptops and work right on the beach with the sun, with some towels spread out, chilling, swimming, and go for a swim and come back, then go back to work. It made me appreciate just how fun work can be and you don't have to sacrifice quality of your life just because you are working for a startup.
To me, working by the beach is seriously a no brainer, I mean more companies should be doing this! It is really hard to go back to working at an office building outside of it once you've experienced the freedom and lifestyle of being by the beach. Also, there is a big difference working close to the beach (like SM) and actually being ON the beach (Venice). I'll take the latter any day.