When I see a young company that has lavish offices, I see a company that I want to avoid, for pretty much the reasons the author points out. It's a company that's wasting their resources on things that don't matter. An established and very profitable company can get away with this (although it's still not a great look), but a young company? At best, it's a sign that the company isn't going to be around for all that long.
It also triggers the "chandelier rule" (when being pitched something, the bigger the chandelier in the room the worse the deal is for you). It's not quite the same thing, but it's in a similar ballpark.
Years ago I did a number of short contracts for distribution companies. Without exception they were terrible places to work. They operate on wafer thin margins so have to watch costs like a hawk. The trouble is they don't know when to turn that off so they inevitably turn into abusive employers.
That said, the most pleasant places I've worked have been in nondescript, no-frills (but not crappy) office spaces and the least pleasant places I've worked have been in luxurious office spaces.
In turn this would mean that if a company is profitable, it can have a nice office and spend more money into "unnecessary" things?
Wouldn't it be better to reinvest that profit into the business to make it even more profitable and grow it?
Doesn't the story somehow imply that as soon as you are profitable you can rest on your success? For me that could mean the beginning of the end.
I think you should provide a decent office to your employees to be productive without unnecessary luxuries and it doesn't really matter if the company is profitable or not.
The difference isn’t the actual luxuries, it’s the amount of skin in the game from the founder.
