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.
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.
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.<p>Now that building is a marijuana grow house. No idea where used furniture ends up now.
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.<p>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.<p>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.)
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.<p>[1]: <a href="https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/" rel="nofollow">https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/</a>
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.
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.<p>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.
Often the employees steal it apparently, or at least that's what was done in the dot com bust.<p>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 <i>only</i> 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.
<a href="https://www.abettersource.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.abettersource.com</a> - 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.
If the company went bankrupt, the liquidator tries to get as much money as possible back.<p>I know from one case where all the IT equipment was sold to an auction house.