A Typical Morning in Silicon Valley
It’s Friday. You wake up to your alarm app that analyzes your sleep patterns and wakes you up at the optimal time with a soothing medley of light and ambient noise. 83% sleep quality and 4 REM cycles. Not bad. You shrug on your second softest hoodie and grab a bottle of Soylent. Sadly it’s the last one, so you tell your watch to order a new shipment as you leave your 220 square foot apartment to commute to work. After getting in your Uber, you tweet about the great time you had at Burning Man last week and how it literally, metaphorically, and spiritually changed your life.
You arrive at your triple-stealth startup in downtown San Francisco. You can easily spot it from down the street because it’s the only building that has valet parking for its hoverboard garage. Ever since the company’s valuation reached an all-time high after its successful Series D round, whispers around the office have been heard about a drone helipad being built on the roof. On the way to your desk, you decide to grab a snack to complement your Soylent brunch. You walk past the kitchen and head to the microkitchen where you score a bag of gluten-free kale and quinoa chips. Delicious.
It’s 10 AM so you head to standup. When you get there, you notice that no one else is standing up, so you take a seat in the closest pink beanbag chair to not stand out. After giving your scrum update you decide to take a quick break in the game room. You can’t decide whether to play ping pong or foosball, so you play both. One hour later, you feel ready to start working and head back to your desk, which has been optimally arranged on the open floorspace to maximize eye contact. After that article, “8 Reasons Why Eye Contact Increases Productivity” trended last week on Medium, all respectable companies have redesigned their floor plans.
After powering on your Macbook Pro, which is littered with stickers of hot startups and a few lukewarm ones, you code for a few minutes. Suddenly, a Slack notification pops up in the corner of your screen: “Anyone down for ping pong right now?” You close your laptop and head to game room.
