
Google pays $250M for Sunnyvale offices where 3,000 could work - smaili
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_29646742/google-pays-250-million-sunnyvale-offices-where-3
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yitchelle
I don't get why Google and others are not going out of the valley to nearby
cities like Sacramento? The difference in property acquisition is probably
pocket change to the company, but I reckon the quality of life to the
Googlers, Facebookers etc would be vastly different.

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mtbcoder
Why stop there though? Why not open up shop near a university town with a low
cost of living? Steady supply of interns, new hires, R&D partnerships, etc.
Culture in a university town, while not on par with a major city, is generally
quite well too.

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ethagknight
As a real estate developer, I would love to see some more discussion on this
thread. What would it take to get a major tech company to relocate an office
or two from Bay Area to much cheaper regions. Obvious items would be network
effects, primarily access to skilled labor and capital. What else? Cheap,
frequent flights to the mothership? Has Google fiber and the likes had any
real impact on luring tech workers out? If anyone knows of existing discussion
or papers on the topic, id love to read it. I'm in Memphis TN, and cities in
the area have low cost of living, some dense urban areas, etc. Oh, and 30-40
story class A office towers that are partially filled.

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Johnnybe
Google already has offices all around the world. They are already doing this.

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ZanyProgrammer
But aren't a lot of those offices either 1. much smaller than MV or 2. not
engineering offices?

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bravura
Interesting to note that this works out to roughly $700 per employee per
month, over a ten month span.

$250M / 10 yrs / 12 months / 3000 employees = $700 per employee-month

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svantana
Except that after those ten years, the value of the property will exceed $0.
In fact it's rather likely to be worth more then than now, so it's actually an
investment.

As Tony Soprano said, "buy real estate cus God ain't making any more". Demand
is pretty certain to outstrip supply from here on out.

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MichaelBurge
That quote makes a lot of sense in a country with limited land like somewhere
in Europe. It doesn't make sense in the United States where we have large
swathes of completely undeveloped land. Even useful farmland is only a few
multiples of $1000/acre.

Your quote would force them to appreciate in price 100 years from now, but on
timescales shorter than that I don't see it providing any real guarantee. Just
look at Detroit.

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codezero
Recently my rent in Sunnyvale for a nice two bedroom went up to $2900* a month
from $2100 Looks like the trend will continue.

*not including trash and utilities.

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perryh2
You can easily rent a bedroom in an older house or multi-room apartment for
around $1000-1200 in Palo Alto, Mountain View, and Sunnyvale though. A few of
my coworkers do this.

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ones_and_zeros
Ah yes, the worlds best and brightest, in the worlds technology hot bed,
blamed for gentrification, told we are over paid, told our skills are in such
demand that special worker visa systems are in place to supplement the supply
but not only can they not afford a home, they can't afford rent by themselves.

Someone is making money in SV to live alone and buy homes but it isn't the
engineers.

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ZanyProgrammer
_some_ engineers most certainly do. I'd say anyone who makes over 200K can
afford to live here. Can a single person making 150K a year afford to live in
Santa Clara County? I'd say for sure.

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Retric
Your vastly overstating things. 2,700 per month was doable @85k. @150K you
could afford 6K per month.

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ZanyProgrammer
I'm just responding to the sentiment that even engineers have to resort to
renting rooms from people. Depending on living expenses and the ability to
save, lots of engineers can afford to live decently in SV. 90k isn't going to
buy you a house in Palo Alto, but you can afford to live in SJ/SV/SC/etc with
that.

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Lind5
Great...so our south bay becomes even more ridiculously congested. We need so
much better mass transit to accommodate all this growth. Instead of spending
billions on a bullet train to Los Angeles, can't we invest that money in
better mass transit in the bay area?

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st3v3r
That money is (presumably) benefitting the whole state, whereas you're looking
to take all that money and just benefitting the small part where you live. Not
really fair.

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Lind5
I hear you.. but I'm guessing there is actually a larger number of people that
would benefit from the bay area being less congested than the number of folks
riding a bullet train to LA

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abbasmehdi
Why not East Bay or South Bay, or anywhere but the peninsula?

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yes_or_gnome
I agree, but I feel that I already know the answer. That is the assumption
being the best talent is on the peninsula. If you open an office too far south
or across the bay, then people from Mountain View upto San Francisco will not
come to work for you.

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cpeterso
Google already buses its employees from all corners of the Bay. So they know
there is talent outside of the Peninsula.

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yes_or_gnome
Right.

But, there's still the time cost of commuting. If you pay a premium to live in
SF, then you're not going to want to commute 90-120 minutes so South Bay. Then
another 90 minutes back at night. In that situation, you'd be paying a premium
to live in cramped quarters, in a city with thousands of things to do, but
have zero time to do any of it during the week.

I meet people on Caltrain coming from Gilroy commuting to work all the way in
SF. Commuting 3-4hrs a day. WTF? I guess there's nothing to do in Gilroy, or
they hate their families. Joking aside, the honest answer is the only
affordable, nuclear-family homes are in the far-south. (Back to joking. Can we
even call Gilroy the Bay-area?)

As it seems to me. When you make the decision to come to the Bay-area.

* You have to decide, do I want to drastically overpay for where I live to be close to SF?

* Do I want to commute 1-3 hours a day?

* Or, do I want to have roommates when I am 30+ years old?

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ZanyProgrammer
"You have to decide, do I want to drastically overpay for where I live to be
close to SF?"

Of course, if you make good tech money (say, anything over 200K) then its a
moot issue-you can overpay for ridiculously priced 1-2 bedroom apartments, and
still have money left over to save/indulge with.

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ryandrake
That's only true for the small number of outliers who make that much. For the
rest of us, there's Gilroy and Santa Cruz and Livermore.

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f0code
Ricky and Bubbles are not going to like this.

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HemanHeartYou
Underrated comment

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VikingCoder
569,000 square feet... 3,000 employees. That's 190 square feet per employee. I
know there's waste with hallways, bathrooms, utility closets, etc... But
doesn't Google also pack their employees in like sardines?

Isn't a (small) cubicle more like 80 square feet? That'd mean more than half
of the space is not-cubicle, right?

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I've worked in 64 square foot
cubicles...?

And I had to share a cubicle for a short time when I think I had 80 square
feet.

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iofj
From another post by a Xoogler:

[1]The new building was a new-style REWS abomination with impressive public
spaces to walk through on the way to totally open offices with no cube walls
(as opposed to the 4' walls around the 12 person cubes in the building I was
in). So there was a lot of resistance in my group..

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xyzzy4
$250M when all those workers could be working from home with the same
efficiency, and greater quality of life.

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sabalaba
Is there research that suggests working from home is equally efficient?

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xyzzy4
Yes, here's one: [https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivity-let-more-
emplo...](https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivity-let-more-employees-
work-from-home)

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trm42
Heh, read first Sunnydale. Would've been awesome to have offices next to
Hellmouth.

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DropbearRob
you're not alone.. I read it as Sunnydale as well and looked at the comments
expecting loads of Buffy jokes.. alas.. I cant read :(

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mrfusion
That's 83k per employee.

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b212
I find it crazy how the big IT companies are still willing to pay almost a
million a worker per office (most likely much more if you count running
costs), any idea why Google is not hiring more people remotely? I mean, if
that's a modern IT company that cares for employees it would be the case, I'd
rather make $100k in different state or even country, than pay $5k for rent in
the bay...

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roel_v
First, 250m for 3000 ppl is 100k/worker.

Secondly, buying a building is (save some closing and renovation costs) a
neutral operation on your balance sheet, especially if you're flush with cash.
In other words, when you buy a building, it maintains its value.

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amelius
> when you buy a building, it maintains its value

Historically, there have been lots of empty offices during economic crises.

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roel_v
Still doesn't make it a 'cost' of 100k / employee. And of course you
depreciate etc. My point was that buying a building isn't a 'cost' in the way
pencils are.

