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What happens to the hardware (MacBooks, Monitors, Chairs) of failed startups?

38 points by ck_one ↗ HN
Yesterday I saw a group of people in SF walking out of a building looking sad and carrying monitors. Now I am wondering what happens to the hardware? Bootstrapped founders (myself) or schools could make good use of it.

26 comments

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stefanhoelzl
If the company went bankrupt, the liquidator tries to get as much money as possible back.

I know from one case where all the IT equipment was sold to an auction house.

hahnchen
Also, where do companies rid of their old MacBooks/servers that they phase out?
mwint
When I was at a BigCo, some groups would regularly send out big Excel spreadsheets of all the old stuff they were about to sell to resellers. You could buy it at the price the reseller would have paid.

Never any really good deals, just decent deals on mostly lower end hardware.

7ewis
Permanent new starters get new MacBooks, contractors get the MacBooks returned by leavers. When the devices are 3+ years old they're used as spares. Beyond that they're either sold to staff, recycled or given to charity.
jdmoreira
at least where I live (Sweden) I know all hardware nowadays is bought in bulk by companies that eventually refurbish and resell them in poorer countries.
paulcole
I work at a smaller remote company. We just sell them back to Apple for whatever gift card they offer. Not the highest price we can get but very low hassle.
wmf
There are companies that specialize in buying used hardware, refurbing it, and selling it on eBay or Amazon. There are other companies that just do used office furniture.
sokoloff
I bought some failed dotcom equipment (computers, monitors, desks, and chairs) at an auction back in 2001. That's probably where the bulk of it that didn't "grow legs" during the shutdown of a company ends up.

For operating companies, a lot of old laptops and servers go to e-waste resellers. (It's a mix of waste and sellable equipment.) That often ends up on Ebay.

If you're scrounging for equipment that's a few years old, I've found craigslist to be pretty good if you have the slightest amount of patience, a willingness to toss out an offer, and give off the vibe that you'll make it a smooth sale. (When I sell something on CL, I'm more likely just trying to keep it out of the trash and get it into someone's hands who will use it.)

Animats
There used to be a place in San Jose called Consolidated Office Distributors, where all that stuff ended up. They had a warehouse that covered an entire city block. Inside, it looked like the Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse. Stacks of chairs, tables, fabric covered cubicle walls, cabinets. I once outfitted an office and shop from there.

Now that building is a marijuana grow house. No idea where used furniture ends up now.

hakfoo
My last firm went through a similar local shop in the Phoenix area-- I think it was http://www.jerrysofficefurniture.com/

Went in a few times when trying to find something better value-for-money than Ikea for the home office. Their prices were too-good-to-be-true, but not being equipped with a vehicle suitable for bringing home 150kg desks or fully-assembled chairs made impractical.

Animats
Consolidated Office would deliver if you bought a few hundred dollars of office furniture. So it was quite practical to outfit an office from them.
dontbenebby
Often the employees steal it apparently, or at least that's what was done in the dot com bust.

I read a lot of books about those times during detentions in the late 90s and early 2000s, and I wasn't there to see it, but the mental image of someone mad they're only going to have a six figure bank or retirement account wheeling a chair with a Xerox on it out the door amuses me, somneone who grew up lower middle class, to this day.

bpiche
Detention, aka the only true elective class in high school
nsonha
I'd guess think it still happening today, especially with remote work, it's so convenient to just "forget" posting back some of the equipments, to another country sometimes. I've got a monitor company sent me that I've never used. So tempted to sell it on ebay regardless of whether they ask for it back when I leave.
jerlam
I doubt it's even worth it for many companies to deal with returning monitors and other sundry office supplies. The company has to spend time and money dealing with the employee to package up the monitor, ship it across the country, have someone make sure it arrives in decent condition, and then sell it to a liquidator for a fraction of its value anyway. Costs less to just let the employee keep it.
nsonha
In my home country where these things are more valuable relative to income, there are people running around scamming companies by joining them only to collect the macbook, sell a couple of days later and repeat. Apparently it happened enough times that recruiter started complaining on linkedin. I don't understand why anyone capable of landing a tech job would do that, they probably cheated on the interview process somehow.
nsonha
Last local company I worked for, they sent a carrier to pick up the laptop and send directly to liquidator. It might worth it if you pack up everything together not just a monitor.
phendrenad2
VC partners probably have a preferred liquidator. Probably a lot of it ultimately ends up cross-posted on amazon and ebay, like everything else.
walrus01
back in the original dotcom 1.0 crash the furniture ended up at various office furniture liquidators and auction specialists, I knew a number of people who bought aeron chairs for like $150 a piece.

most big cities have a few warehouse-like vendors of used office furniture if you do some searching and visiting locations in person. can usually rule in or out if a place actually has a lot in stock by finding it from google street view and checking the size of the building from aerial view.

krallja
When Fog Creek Software closed the “Bionic Office”[1] in 2008 to move downtown, I was dismayed to realize (afterward) that we had left the fancy designer lamps screwed to the walls, to be destroyed or buried in a landfill. At least they moved the computers and the Aeron chairs.

[1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/

diebeforei485
It's usually auctioned off. There are special websites for these if you're willing to buy like 50 chairs. Some of them sell on eBay.
quietthrow
https://www.abettersource.com - Don't let their polished website throw you off. They have a TON of good use office desks and chairs in their showrooms...Herman Miller, steel case ..on and on.
tschwimmer
Can't speak to computer hardware, but I was gearing up my home office a few years ago (pre-pandemic) and I found an office chair I wanted on craigslist. It was a great deal, about 55% of retail and seemingly in good shape. The guy texted me an address and when I got there, it was a house in a residential area. He opened the door and the house was floor to ceiling jam packed with office chairs. There was barely any room to move around and I remember it took him about 10 minutes to Tetris the chair I wanted out of the tangle. I couldn't help but ask what the deal was, and he said his fulltime job was to search for companies that went out of business and then go buy valuable stuff from them. He didn't say how he sourced these companies, but it seems like there's an active trade in buying this stuff and reselling it through various channels.
wdb
If anyone know such companies in or near London U.K. love to hear it! I am looking for some good office desk for the home office :)