[srp]

At the startup I work at, we just let developers come in with their own laptops - I would be very surprised if I am hiring an experienced programmer and they don't already have a super customized laptop that they swear by. It didn't make sense to buy brand new hardware/software for folks who already have a wonderful setup on their machine.

Of course then there was this guy who didn't want to do official work on his personal laptop. We offered to buy him a laptop of his own choice (we specified a max price of course). He got a HP something (doesn't like Mac's) and runs some version of linux on it.

Likewise we have no artificial restrictions on software they use - say editors, jabber chat clients, mail clients etc etc, as long it all works well.

As long as the programmers are hacking away in an env that can run our stack well we have no problems with what they run. Keeps the programmers happy.

[ardit33]

1. not everybody has a laptop. I have a own custom build laptop.

2. If I am joining a startup as a founder (or early employee with lots of equity), I will buy my own laptop, otherwise you are just being cheap.

3. That guy is smart. There might be legal ramification with doing personal work on work equipment. So, he wanted to keep his personal and work equipment separate (or maybe he had too much porn on his personal one, who knows).