The other side of this, is the company I worked for about that time, purchased the entire set of office furniture from a defunct company to setup our office when we moved. Turns out we didn't need it all, and sold a lot of it. At the end of the year, the majority of our profit was the furniture hussle.

At the end of the first dot-com boom, there was a place in San Jose called Consolidated Office Supply which bought the furniture of failed dot-coms. They had a warehouse which covered an entire city block, full of used furniture. Looked like the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I bought furniture there for something I was starting up. Very cheap, and they delivered.