

Facebook close to naming Sun Microsystems campus as new headquarters. - mattwdelong
http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/01/facebook-headquarters-sun/

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evgen
Ouch, Sun Quentin... That will be a hellish experience for people used to the
previous locations. A startup I worked for was a couple of blocks away from
there on Willow and the area is a vast wasteland. Good for Facebook in some
ways though, since people will have a strong disincentive to leave the campus:
there is nothing in the immediate area so you have to drive anywhere you might
go, and it is located at a choke-point in a major commuter route so if you
leave the office after 3pm the traffic will prevent you from returning before
5pm even if you just bounce to the old Facebook office and back.

~~~
gregholmberg
I have worked in downtown Palo Alto and at "Sun Quentin" in Menlo Park.

I liked both locations very much. If you have ever lived in the desert and
liked it, you might like what we used to call "New Menlo". I can see how
others might be horrified at the idea of working in such an austere landscape.

Downtown PA is a popular after-work destination. The burden of work can seem
very light when you can hear groups of people laughing as they walk by during
lunch or in the evening. The parking and traffic are a tolerable hassle. The
city of Palo Alto has done a nice job of providing parking over the years.

The Sun offices out on the edge of the bay were unlike many others that I have
worked in. Although there were cubicles in odd corners, more than 95% of my
building was subdivided into high-quality office space with doors that closed
(and locked!). The views, the site arrangement, and the good offices felt
right for sustained, intense concentration.

The neighborhood surrounding the Sun campus on the land side alternates
between post-WWII low income housing and warehousing or light industrial
parks. It's fairly bleak.

I would not hesitate to walk a few miles after work in downtown PA. The
network of trails on the bay levees are a wonderful place to run or ride a
bike. I always liked to take short walks out there in the daytime or early
evening.

On the land side of New Menlo, I never walked beyond the edge of the parking
lot. I didn't know anyone else who did either. In that regard, the place is
indeed a prison.

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bretpiatt
I'm interested in the HN feedback on this. Almost everyone agrees that when
you have a small team startup that working together in an office is important.
Then at some point it goes from everyone together as a good idea into a
"corporate campus" and it seems a lot of people think the "corporate campus"
is an evil bad idea. Is it really more about the company attitude than
location?

~~~
mattwdelong
I`m actually curious as to what the campus looks like myself (interior). I
have been searching for images with no avail. If anyone finds anything, link
me?

~~~
elptacek
I used to work on this campus in 1997. It kinda reminded me of an apartment
complex in that there is a large open areas surrounded by free-standing
buildings. At the time, there was a dry cleaners drop off, at least one small
restaurant and an exercise facility. There's also a trail that rings the
entire campus. In the building I had access to, the outer walls were built out
with small offices that would fit 1-4 people and the middle part of the
buildings had reception desks and labs. Everything was taupe and tan with the
medium purple Sun color in contrast. The offices have nice large windows
looking over the parking lot and the marshes beyond. There was plenty of nice
break space, and I remember being surprised to find a room designated for
women to pump breastmilk. But then, there were a lot of women on that campus.

ETA: if you click on the map link in the article and zoom in, you'll get a
pretty good look. The building off to the left side of the picture that is
most separate from the rest was the exercise facility. The building in the
upper right is the one I worked in.

~~~
portman
Did you feel like there wasn't enough outdoor space?

Comparing this (via aerial imagery) to working on the Microsoft campus in the
late 90s, it seems like Sun campus is mostly indoors, as opposed to the
"college" feel of Microsoft or Google.

I would think that Facebook would want to emulate Google's campuses more, with
a larger number of smaller buildings to promote a more collegiate atmosphere.
But this is all based on four 45-degree aerial shots, so I'm curious what your
thoughts are on the place.

~~~
philwelch
It doesn't seem like Facebook has much choice, really. Even Google had to take
over an existing campus (SGI) that fit their requirements. Can you imagine the
expense of building a completely new campus in Silicon Valley?

Apple's been planning to build a new campus for _years_. Even they had to buy
an existing property (HP's old campus), and reportedly are planning to build
an entirely new campus on the same land.

As successful and rich as Facebook is, they aren't Apple-rich. They probably
aren't even Apple-picky about what their new campus is like--not that they
don't _care_ , but it's hard to imagine anyone else having the same level of
perfectionism as Apple.

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philwelch
Is there any better metaphor for creative destruction than this? Google bought
SGI's campus just as SGI died, and now Facebook is scavenging Sun's campus.
The new rising from the ashes of the old, and so forth.

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dangrover
Geez, it seems like just the other day they moved from downtown Palo Alto to
that giant office way out past California Ave.

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wallflower
The old Build vs. Buy dilemma

Facebook == Buy

Apple == Build

Apple is building a new campus, "City of Apple". Famed architect, Norman
Foster, is designing it.

[http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/06/acclaimed_arch...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/12/06/acclaimed_architect_norman_foster_to_build_apples_new_campus.html)

~~~
philwelch
Even they had to buy another company's old campus--even though they're rich
and perfectionist enough to tear it down and build a new one on top of it. It
doesn't sound like there's much room to develop new real estate in Silicon
Valley.

~~~
timcederman
Plenty of room here. It just depends where you want to be. For our last office
space it was a choice between individual offices for everyone, but the 'wrong'
side of the 101 in Menlo Park, vs desks in downtown PA. Downtown PA was very
much a unanimous decision.

