Google Preparing To Launch G-Town 251
theodp writes "The Mercury News reports that Google's aggressive online growth increasingly has a counterpart in bricks and mortar, with the company's Mountain View HQ mushrooming in the past four years to occupy more than 4 million square feet. And that's just for starters. On Silicon Valley's NASA Ames base, Google is preparing to build a new corporate campus with fitness and day care facilities and — in a first in the valley — employee housing, adding 1.2 million sqare feet to Google's real estate holdings. 'I don't want to say it's the new company town,' said commercial real estate VP Gregory M. Davies of Google's role, 'but it's not far from it.' Presumably, no anti-suicide nets will be needed for this one."
Re:Think bigger (Score:4, Interesting)
Why start your own country when you can buy (representatives of) existing countries?
"from the owe-my-soul-to-the-company-store dept." (Score:3, Interesting)
Ames (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm getting a little worried at just what Google is able to get away with with respect to Ames and Moffett Field. Only military and NASA planes can land there...except Sergey and Larry's private jets. Only military and NASA personnel and researchers live on the property...plus some Google staffers who need a cheap apartment. I just think that maybe they're getting a little special treatment.
That's how I got my start in SV (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked in Colorado for a company headquartered in Sunnyvale. They used to fly us out from CO and we'd work in silicon valley for Colorado wages, staying in corporate housing. I loved it because I sublet my apartment in CO out so I was essentially staying for free. Top that off with all the overtime I was working in a place that I didn't technically live (yet) and thus didn't have many friends to go out partying with.
Then they wanted to bring some of us out to CA to live permanently, but didn't want to give us the cost of living adjustments. In order to pacify us they let us stay in the company housing with less than cost-of-living raises, making less than we should but compensating the low pay by covering the housing cost. It worked out really well for a while and was a great start. I had to quit the company when I wanted to move out though because they wouldn't budge on giving any of us raises if we moved out.
The living wasn't bad, I had some interesting room mates that were smart people, but some were crazy or just odd characters. They were bringing in Taiwanese engineers that couldn't speak just about any english and urinated all over the bathroom in the middle of the night. Thankfully we had housekeeping three times a week. I also had these two drunk party-crazy room mates that would tear the place apart. One of them came home drunk and drank a half a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and went blind for like a day or two. Another one would get drunk and go steal fruit off the trees in people's yards. One time they got in a flour fight and when I woke up it was like a ghost had walked all over my apartment. Another one went crazy on drugs, lost a rental car, got sent back to CO but never made it because he got arrested on his Phoenix layover for trying to disassemble a metal detector or something (though he wasn't technically my room mate.)
Ah, the good old days of technology, per diem, overtime cash and partying with other nerds in Man Jose. Can't say they weren't interesting, but I'm glad they're over.
I wonder how this will end... (Score:4, Interesting)
History is full of stories of very powerful companies (Standard Oil, IBM, etc.) that exerted great influence in their time. However, over their life, their influence was either diluted by regulations or the company changed completely. An example would be IBM -- they had a complete lock on the mainframe, a huge advantage in the "business machines" side of the business, but almost lost their place in the 90s by not reacting fast enough to the changeover to PCs and lower-end servers. Now they're a powerful consulting company and STILL have their lock on the mainframe, so they're still OK. Another example would be AT&T -- total monopoly on phone service, had enough money and leeway to support a complete basic research lab (Bell Labs) and had to totally reinvent itself to bexome a wireless carrier on a much smaller scale. (Yes, I know ATT handles all the iPhone contracts in the US, but that's a far cry from dictating the phone service standards for the world.)
I wonder if Google will even have to adapt. At their heart, they're just an advertising agency that happens to serve search results to millions of users every day. For all the neat stuff they "give away" for "free", I don't know if people realize that all their usage data for these tools are being used to improve the core advertising business. If the Web 2.0 no-privacy thing proves to be the new way of the world and not just a fad, Google could concievably keep its lock on the advertising market as long as "common users" never have to pay for anything.
Looking at some of the current Google news stories such as the Street View flap, and how underwhelmed most people were about it, I really think they could continue collecting any information they want without being challenged. I'm not super-old, but I really am amazed about the difference in generational attitudes about privacy. I'm not a tinfoil hat guy, but I really wonder about some of the implications of one company controlling a lot of the advertising market and having a pretty accurate profile about you to share with its customers. Advertising is annoying, but take it a step further and think about life insurers, potential employers, etc. etc... A little far fetched, but I wouldn't totally rule it out.
Re:obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Security Risk? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Security Risk? (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems that its on Moffett Field, not actually at Ames itself. Moffett is the old air base that plays host to Ames as well as other facilities. In order to get into Moffett, I believe that only a picture ID is required.
However, even if it were on Ames itself, Pete Worden is a unique administrator and if anyone could find a way to make it work, its him.
Where World's Collide (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Think bigger (Score:3, Interesting)
Corporation: The Future of Roleplaying (Score:5, Interesting)
Troubling trend in employer running your life (Score:5, Interesting)
I have been seeing a scarry trend in employers like Google trying to run the lives of their employees. It goes something like this:
You get a student out of University where the University was like their parent (provided their housing, food, rules, activities, goals to achieve, etc) and you recreate that in coporate life so they don't have to adjust to being an adult. You provide their food, their housing, their banking (through your own employee credit union), their healthcare and their activities/goals. It is almost like a cult.
In the end, it makes it difficult to distinguish your personal life and your personal space from your work and it makes it that much harder to leave that job because you'd also need to find a place to live, a new bank, a new health plan/provider and all of the rest of living in the real world as part of the process.
Re:I doubt anti-suicide nets would be needed (Score:5, Interesting)
Foxconn has about half a million employees.
The USA has a suicide rate of about 10-14 per 100k: http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html [suicide.org]
If you have 500000 employees, one shouldn't be so surprised if 50 of them kill themselves every year.
Sheriff Required (Score:3, Interesting)
Google, Inc requires the services of a sheriff for its new company town.
1) Fast paced and dynamic environment.
2) Unmatched benefits.
3) Accomodation in a nuclear bunker.
4) Occasional travel in time and to other dimensions.
Pleas click the 'Apply Now' button below.
Parkinson's Law (Score:4, Interesting)
C. Northcote Parkinson described this in his landmark work "Parkinson's Law." He noticed that British bureaucracies were most effective when young, dynamic, focused, and invariably housed in makeshift quarters.
As these bureaucracies matured, they arranged better housing for themselves, and the completion of a grand edifice, complete with statuary, limousine parking, &etc. they had invariably achieved institutional senility, becoming utterly ineffective.
While dated, Parkinson's Law (1958) is still relevant today; it's simultaneously too funny to be true, yet too true to be dismissed as humor.
gawbl
Re:obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
Screw the gym facilities (Score:3, Interesting)