On Tuesday I went to New York to meet with SHORTER’S American editor and publicity team about the release of the book. (Fortunately, events like the UK general election, in which the Labour Party is advocating for a 4-day workweek (and right-wing think tanks are saying would be terrible), the new Microsoft Japan report, Cal Newport’s New York Times piece, etc. are doing a great job of getting people talking about it!)

I also had a little time to stop in the global headquarters of Cockroach Labs, a startup located on 23rd Street.

They do cloud-based SQL databases, which if you know anything about cloud computing or SQL databases is really cool. (I don’t, but living in Silicon Valley I have friends who are highly technical and think this is an interesting problem.) They also have a 4-day workweek, with the office staying open on Fridays to let people work on their own side projects. This may not sound like a great perk, but for software developers, many of whom are self-taught and are always aware that there are new and interesting technologies that they should learn about, it’s a powerful attractor.

As a result, the average age of company employees is 35, which means that they’re a young company with a surprisingly experienced workforce with the structural support needed to stay up-to-date in their specialties.

For a place on 23rd Street, the office was surprisingly green. The common area has a big wall of moss and ferns, which also serves to absorb sound.

There are other plants throughout the office, which pick up on the green.

This was an especially nice touch: moss on one side of the pillars (since moss only grows on one side of trees).

It’s always great to see these places, because it stimulates questions that you wouldn’t think to ask via Skype, or lets you pick up details that you otherwise wouldn’t notice. For example, I was struck by how quiet the place was: even though it was open office, there was virtually no chatter (except for me). However, they get lunch brought into the kitchen four days a week, and during lunchtime everyone congregates and talks. Being more focused doesn’t make the place less friendly.

There were lots of other interesting details, but I’ll save those for the talks.

While all the humans were very friendly and generous with their time, one of the office dogs was absolutely certain that I was up to no good, and that I needed to be watched carefully.

Fortunately for (fur?) the company, Carl made sure that I wasn’t able to create any trouble.

His friend Remy, in contrast, was a little less suspicious.