I think that first sentence is profoundly wrongheaded. It's not just unpleasant, it's also penny-wise and pound-foolish. It is very hard to keep employees happy over the long term. Turnover is extremely expensive, and expensive in insidious ways. Employees already think that the founder is getting all sorts of perks that they aren't getting. Making that clearly apparent to everyone by giving yourself better digs is a terrible business move.

I just tracked you down on LinkedIn (we're only 3 hops away!). This is your first company. I'm not on my first company. Let me spare you a lesson I am still gradually learning the hard way: whatever day-to-day pains and frustrations your team is dealing with, you should be sharing.

Take the extra money for the Aeron chair and buy a couple of six packs for the office. I may have just saved you several tens of thousands of dollars with that bit of advice.

"Let me spare you a lesson I am still gradually learning the hard way: whatever day-to-day pains and frustrations your team is dealing with, you should be sharing."

This is a great lesson. People only fix problems when it affects them directly. If you are sitting in a better chair and a developer says that his chair doesn't suit him, you will take it as whining. After all, there is nothing wrong with your chair.

However if you are sitting in the same chairs, you will experience what it is like. After a few weeks, you may realise that these chairs are horrible for your back.

I lived in Kenya before where the roads are terrible and full of potholes. To avoid this problem, the President had special shock absorbers installed on his limousine. After all, he is President. He must deserve it and splurge on himself. Now when he goes anywhere he doesn't experience the same things others do. Since there is now no problem for him, there is no incentive for him to fix the roads.

Don't be a leader who only solves his own problems.

See my comment above about the employee perks. I forgot to mention the fridge is already stocked with drinks and snacks. I am indeed learning and appreciate your feedback.

Employees in this office will have plenty of perks – including $100 travel reimbursement per month, plus free lunch every day. I would not want to hire someone bogged down into such minute details of chairs when the entire space is obviously meant to make it as comfortable for them as possible.

are you kidding me? After the PC/Laptop/screen the type of chair is very very important. Any developer that is worth something, knows that they will have to sit down for long period of time, it better be a good chair.

If not, then it shows a lot about the employer. You risk looking like a company that buys cheap desktops, and and small screens to save money, but don't realise they are loosing tons in the way of lost productivity.

At home I have an $200 Ikea chair, and it is really nice. Not bank breaking for sure, but I expect my employer buy something similar in comfort level. Doesn't have to be a top of the line, but something that I can sit for few hours at a time without breaking my back.

I learned it the hard way, but I will never work in a place that cheaps out on chairs.

If you can't afford a $200 chair per employee, then you shouldn't be hiring. You need founders, and they can bring their own chair.

I think not hiring because you can't afford $200 chairs is silly-I can either hire you now or wait until I can afford 600 chairs. There are part time employees out there too! I was specifically referring to the fact that as an employer I am doing the best I can to get good chairs within a budget. These chairs are extremely comfortable and happened to be affordable.

I went to IKEA looking for chairs—and hated all of them. To me, these chairs are very comfortable.

I think you're missing my point. Chair quality is a red herring. It's "visibly splurging on the founder" that's going to kill you.

If you stopped by our office I think you would say there isn't any splurging anywhere-we aren't VC backed

I would much rather have a comfortable chair than free lunch everyday. Free lunch would save me some money but a good chair will save health problems down the road and make me feel better while working.

Why don't you trade the free lunch for better chairs?

I recently went ergonomic chair shopping and find it extremely hard to believe you can get a decent chair for $60-80. The price range was 10x that where I looked.

The chairs in this photo - http://dontrepreneur.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/office2.jpg - do not look anywhere near ergonomic. If it only goes up and down, it's not ergonomic.

This is a great idea that fits our budget