
Google’s New Office In Dublin - edu
http://www.home-designing.com/2013/02/googles-new-office-in-dublin
======
mbrock
I've been thinking about how if you look at our culture as, well, a culture,
then it's pretty sad how the places where most of us spend 8 hours a day are
these miserable, depressing, stupidly ugly dungeons, with plastic fruit and
noisy robots making battery-acid coffee. I imagine some future historian
talking about the corporations of the second dark age to a horrified
classroom. Then I have a cup of coffee and cheer up. Wouldn't mind working in
this place.

~~~
moystard
It depends where the cup of coffee comes from.

I love the fact that their work environment is not limited to their desk and
meeting rooms. You can select the environment that works the best for you, and
that stimulates the qualities you require for a specific task (or just pick
the one you like the most).

~~~
andrewtbham
I agree... it seems like the fixed office could become a relic of the past. it
used to be important that you were generally in your office... so people could
find you or reach you on your extension, but with chat and email.. it seems
less relevant.

~~~
devcpp
More importantly, with the portable work stations available today. It used to
be a big event to move desks. Now you can work in another floor, no need to
take your bulky computer and all the cables and network configuration with
you.

------
capred
What flashes through my mind when I see this type of corporate fetish, even it
being Google, is that the future is much more likely to be version of Brave
New World than 1984.

We consume not because we're told to, but because we want to. We become
vehicles in an economic equation.

Something is unnerving about the fact so many of us feel privileged to have
the ability to dedicate our lives to what is essentially an organization to
make money. I know it stikes odd to think that's the only purpose of Google
(it seems not to be) but it certainly is for a significant portion of the
corporatocracy.

Those two factors combined (variables in an economic equation and we have
blind faith in corporations) can undermine the basis of a free society whose
goals go beyond the enrichment of a handful of shareholders.

~~~
jrockway
Aren't individuals essentially organizations trying to make money? Perhaps
we're not so different from corporations after all.

~~~
mbrock
Everybody on Hacker News wants to make a wad of money so they can fuck off
from corporate drudgery and play around -- there's an end goal, it's a
rational process for most individuals, not a world-devouring cancer.

------
ilikejam
Some of the corporate speak on there is horrific. "We enable innovation" Ugh.

I'd probably shuffle off to a quiet, dimly lit corner somewhere with my
headphones, and try to block out the intense primary colours and lack of sound
insulation.

I must be getting old.

~~~
jrockway
The picutres are sourced from here:
[http://www.camenzindevolution.com/Works/Google/Google-
Campus...](http://www.camenzindevolution.com/Works/Google/Google-Campus-
Dublin)

So it's possible that the captions are added by the design firm rather than
Google. (If you look at office pictures from
<http://www.google.com/about/jobs/>, the tone of the surrounding copy seems
different. Though perhaps still a little corporate :)

------
pimentel
Looks good, but do people really work on those "work pods" (for example, the
red 'e' with the guy in a laptop)? Maybe a soft-skilled employee could (text
writing, excel crunching, etc), but what about the developers at google? I
couldn't let go some multi-monitor, confy chair setup to sit there...

~~~
jre
I don't work at Google, but I've found that working from a different location
in the office for some time helps me refocus during the day. So I sometimes
just take my laptop, ssh to my desktop and go find a table/couch somewhere.

Also, multiple monitors are useful, but there are some programming tasks (like
implementing an algorithm and writing some unit tests) where a laptop is fine.

~~~
swah
He prob. means specifically the pods.

------
gebe
Kind of looks like they moved into an IKEA store.

~~~
yen223
I work in a factory. I wish my office looked like an IKEA store!

------
Cthulhu_
Negativity here, the pictures are horribly warped (possibly to capture more of
the room in one shot) which gives a skewed perception of office sizes, and of
course the people look staged. Could be actors, given the surreal-looking
male/female distribution (or it's not a developer office). (not a sexist
remark, just a comment on the poor male/female ratio in software development
in general)

~~~
tiziano88
Indeed, the Dublin office is mostly sales (little or no eng) IIRC

~~~
edu
I'm pretty sure they've some Site Reliability Engineers over there too.

edit: As a fact I've got a couple of recruiters offering that position in
Dublin.

~~~
Filligree
Yep, but not in that building.

I prefer this one, though. It's cozy, and has engineer-oriented amenities like
workshops. :-)

------
antninja
Why do googlers enjoy colorful environments when all of Google's web apps are
so depressingly gray?

~~~
kaolinite
Presumably because the enterprises that Google sell to prefer the depressing
grey.

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mojuba
Awesome design. They even built a stylised Trinity Library room if I'm not
mistaken.

~~~
raverbashing
Ha, you are right!

(It's a photo on the right, under the musical keyboard and on top of the 'blue
waves' photo)

See the original:
[https://www.google.ie/search?q=trinity+library&um=1&...](https://www.google.ie/search?q=trinity+library&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&biw=1920&bih=953&sei=m28bUZa4FNOZhQfmxoGADA)

------
DodgyEggplant
Read carefully young souls: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust>

~~~
nappy-doo
Didn't get past the phone screen, eh?

------
EricBurnett
In case it isn't clear from the article, these pictures are actually from a
number of different buildings. They're all together on the street, so it's
still one "office", but only some of the pictures are from the newest
building. We've been enjoying the rest for a while now :).

------
Toenex
In all the pictures I did not spot anyone holding an iPad.

------
jonheller
What I like best about promoting offices like these is not so much the
decoration (although personally I like it, especially the library room), but
the furthering of the idea that work can be accomplished anywhere -- not just
at your desk.

I doubt there's much of a question as to whether the people at Google work
hard and get a lot accomplished during their days. So you'd think that if such
a productive company could accomplish that in a distributed (distributed
meaning people working at places besides their desk) office, so could your
more run-of-the-mill companies.

------
PavlovsCat
I love the colors, but I can't wrap my brain around captions like "our bench
marks are enabling highest efficiency with ultimate creativity". A desperate,
naive part of me likes to think they are satire..

~~~
Filligree
Ha.

If that was the engineering office, they would be. Since it's sales.. well.

------
ccarnino
Google has always cool offices! I believe that's part of the his effort to
attract the best talent. It seems a minor detail, but it connect with your
emotions regarding being cool.

~~~
qompiler
Talent goes to Mountain View, CA. Job openings outside of the United States
only include babysitting the office with some added mundane tasks. Why?
Because Google uses it's world network for dodging taxes.

~~~
raverbashing
What does other openings have to do with "world network for dodging taxes"?

Hint: not a lot. Other companies do it with having minimum offices or _none at
all_

Several consultancies will happily open a "paper company" for you in Ireland
or wherever you choose. No problem whatsoever

"Talent goes to Mountain View" [citation needed].

There are a lot of talent outside the US (V8 came from Germany, also Zurich,
London and Dublin offices have technical openings, Australia, not to forget
Belo Horizonte in Brazil) and inside the US (NY comes to mind)

Google's datacenters are spread across the world.

~~~
qompiler
> What does other openings have to do with "world network for dodging taxes"?

Marketing.

> Several consultancies will happily open a "paper company" for you in Ireland
> or wherever you choose. No problem whatsoever

Not every company is willing to spend this much on marketing.

> "Talent goes to Mountain View" [citation needed]

Read up on the story of Lars Bak.

> There are a lot of talent outside the US (V8 came from Germany, also Zurich,
> London and Dublin offices have technical openings, Australia, not to forget
> Belo Horizonte in Brazil) and inside the US (NY comes to mind)

Openings that have been "open" for many years. If you get through you will be
moved to Mountain View, CA.

~~~
raverbashing
"Not every company is willing to spend this much on marketing."

You are overestimating the size of Google's (internal) marketing, and don't
know how marketing is structured for companies like Google, also you seem to
not understand how multinational tax structures work, so I won't explain any
further.

"If you get through you will be moved to Mountain View, CA"

That's not what happened to several people that work or have worked at Google
that I have personal knowledge of.

Some will go to MV of course, depending on area of work.

Lars Bak? "In 2004, Bak joined Google to work on the Chrome browser. He did
not return to the United States"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Bak_(computer_programmer)>

------
Luc
Wow, nice to see the variety, but most of it is really tacky and tasteless, in
my humble opinion. This is going to look really dated in 10 to 20 years.

~~~
ikailan
They remodel the offices pretty frequently. Sometimes ... _too_ often, I
think.

------
harel
There's something dangerous in such working conditions. It ends up being the
place you spend most of your 24 hour per day allowance. If you are single and
friendless this is perfect. If you have a family and friends outside of your
work life - that is a shame because you'll see them less and less. There is a
price for an in office bar, pool table, free food and amazing decor... hmm...

~~~
brown9-2
You seem to blame the office decoration for people wanting to spend most of
their day in the office rather than the person making the decision to spend
most of their day in the office.

~~~
harel
Its not the decoration, but the culture. And if your life is lacking on the
social department you might be tempted to compensate by working to oblivion
instead of doing something wrong about it.

------
pasbesoin
All the money obviously spent elsewhere. And then, open space -- not even
cubicles.

So sad.

Well, Google's quite successful, so who am I to judge? But... not my cup of
tea. And, somehow, it puts me in mind of the crap customer support for "end
users". I guess, in my experience, the more internal distraction, the less
outward focus and attention.

So far, gains through automation keep Google on a winning pace. But, I
wonder...

------
gbog
Wow, impressive. But, to be honest, some part of my mind can't stop thinking:
what a gigantic loss of money!

~~~
rytis
Stuff them all in a basement, or a hangar, in a "space efficient open floor
plan that encourages team collaboration and communication" (read - easy
micromanagement, and cost saving). Who needs all that comfort, they should be
toiling away, not enjoying themselves...

------
fauigerzigerk
Looks like a department store. I can't see myself working there at all.

------
mtgx
Check out the ones in Tel Aviv tambien:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-offices-in-tel-
aviv-2...](http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-offices-in-tel-aviv-2013-2)

------
jalayr
Getting used to all that diverse furniture, I'd knock my shins a fair few
times.

------
Tichy
It seems they went all big plan offices, no small offices at Google?

------
exodust
Google, how about using some of those office colors and tones in your web
interfaces instead of stark white everywhere? You wouldn't paint your walls
all white so why must everything you do in the browser be on a white page?

------
xentronium
Are open plan rooms norm for google?

~~~
jrockway
It's a mix, at least in NYC. Some teams have their own rooms, but more than
50% are out in the open. (The allocation seems to be random.)

On the floor where I work, they've installed devices designed to generate
noise that makes the office seem quieter. (Or so I'm told.) It seems to work
pretty well; there are a lot of people on the floor but I don't feel the need
to listen to music unless I am really in the mood for music. When everyone
goes home, it kind of sounds like a gurgling stream. Apparent but not
distracting.

I don't really understand how it works, but considering I prefer to work from
the office than from home, they must be doing something right.

~~~
dnu
It's probably generating "white noise" which covers the other noises. For
example: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUwEiMNhOCM>

------
qompiler
Nice, another tax dodging office in Europe. Just like the office in Amsterdam.
I guess it's needed for the whole tax dodging network.

~~~
yen223
This is quite possibly the least cost-effective way to dodge taxes. Most
companies only need a tiny office.

